It's Like Christmas Up In Here
by Sifl-senpai
Summary: A collection of Jade/Dave or Jadesprite/Davesprite or any similar variations! Some will be dark, some will not, and some even have a recurring plot. Current recurring plot Ch. 8-9: Dave/Sprite/Jade triangle where Sburb went a little differently.
1. Chapter 1

Hello, everyone! Welcome to Sifl's first true ship fic! I will feature all sorts of Dave and Jade/ Jadesprite and Davesprite drabbles and ficets and whatevers on here, some happy, some sad, some crazy, some fluffy, some angsty, and some complicated! If there was a song I was listening to from my handy dandy "Sick Jave, Bro!" Playlist, it will be listed in italics and as the chapter title. I hope you enjoy this and don't forget to leave a review/request/suggestion/comment/constructive criticism! Thanks!

Oh, and I don't own Homestuck.

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><p><em>He Is We: Happily Ever After<em>

His name was Dave Strider.

Her name was Jade Harley.

And they were dealing with something a little bigger than what they thought- at least, that's what _he _thought as he stared at them from behind his dark glasses. He had watched, awestruck, as her trembling shoulders had straightened, her waiflike wanderings became confidently rooted, her tears had disappeared, and her hands had made the journey _away from his_ and towards something much, much greater.

Of course he was happy to still be alive. Of course he was happy that she had become a goddess (not that she wasn't already one to him, not that he'd admit it, and not that he'd ever stop adoring her once others began to) and of course he wanted her to keep going towards brighter horizons.

But that didn't mean that, at the same time, he could swallow the lump in his throat and deny that he also (paradoxically, just like everything else when you're technically a clone of a clone of your _paradox self_) wished he _were_ dead and she was still a normal girl on an obscure island (and he didn't know her, and could easily admit he wasn't fond of her, and never cared about her in the first place) and wanted her to be safe and undiscovered in her crevice of the world.

If only he could turn back time and—

Oh, wait. He had.

The irony of it all. His name was Dave (or it _had_ been, before he had played time like his turntables) and _his_ name, the name of the figure in red rising out of the Green Sun in the distance, was Dave Strider, the Knight of Time.

These little differences are key details.

That Red Dwarf he _could have been but didn't become_ was nowhere near as bright as the great green powerhouse they all beheld, but Dave the Strider was just that much closer to it- to _her-_ than Dave the Sprite's wings could ever bring him.

From her place in the sky, Jade smiled her silly smile down at him and it was like a dazzling ray of sunshine from a merciful god.

…How could she have been right next to him one moment ago and now be so far away and so high above him, with her Knight, the next?

The distance between them kept growing and eventually she looked away.

He, a bird with a broken wing, was nothing more than Dave of Guy. And he had been okay with that up until she had ceased to be Jade of Gal.

Now he just wanted Dave Strider, Knight of Time to fast forward him to some point on the timeline when he, Davesprite, wasn't reduced to being a miserable crow picking over the carrion of past failures. There was a chance that this would all work out in the end and he, the flightless bird, could be happy. Yes. There was hope in the scratch resetting the cosmos because everything would be _better _and they'd all have a chance to win because this session, _this _one, was bigger trouble than what they'd anticipated.

Dave Strider, Knight of Time and Jade Harley, Witch of Space were leaving this world to create a new one where her Space

and his Time

permeated into every aspect of one another to work together in a perfect marriage.

Davesprite saw it all through his sunglasses, but he no longer knew how much (or what) his counterpart Dave Strider could divine from beneath the artificial darkness he dwelt in- a Knight and a Guy are not quite the same thing, after all. Would Dave the Knight really be the one to sweep her off her feet and away…?

He ignored his jealous heart and convinced himself that he would find joy in their final success. For now, he would just have to wait in agony for the end to come and claim him.


	2. Chapter 2

_Considering the title of the collection and the month of the year, a submission like this was appropriate. Merry Christmas! And feel free to ogle all of my pet Jade/Dave ship themes embedded in this one. Dave as fire is pretty much a constant all the time because it suits him and it's literally my favorite half of the reason I ship this. Set several years post-Sburb. They're like twenty or something I don't know. XD_

_Pesterlog formats are unnerving._

_I do not own Homestuck!_

_Feedback is loved and constructive criticisms and theme requests are appreciated._

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><p><span>Sick Jave, Bro!<span>

_It's Like Christmas Up In Here_

_-tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]-_

TT: Strider, this is what is going to transpire if you refuse the invite: John and Jade will bequeath upon you the _**look **_and you will ultimately surrender your dignity and ever-prized coolness to them in a rushed manner most ill befitting for one of your position.

TG: no way

TG: I might surrender my shades or whatever through some divine intervention of the coolkid gods but never my innate coolness

TG: that would be impossible

TG: striders are made of cool

TG: we are the cool all of it

TT: So you have said on many occasions. However, that does not change the inevitable outcome of Egbert-Harley-Strider-Lalonde shenanigans.

TG: okay yeah sure whatever you never even told me what the hell you were talking about specifically

TG: i mean jegus you start throwing around terms like transpire like this is some kind of predestined tomfoolery that I am way too over to deal with

TG: shit were all way too over predestined shit

TT: I did not mean to release a font of unpleasant memories. I apologize.

TG: naw whatever its cool like i said im over it

TT: No, you most certainly are not. Please don't be an even bigger ass than usual and try to downplay that.

TG: whatever we can still joke about it im not going to break or drown in mopey flashback sorrow shit

TG: laughter is the best medicine right

TT: Well, now that you have established that, do you know how impressed I am to take note of how you have expanded your vocabulary to include words longer than four letters when describing obscure and hopelessly convoluted occurrences?

TG: yep that tomfoolery inclusion was just for you

TG: but I got plenty of word whoppers yo I am a word smith

TG: thats like will smith except way more fresh and way more prince

TG: words be pourin out of these regal lips like diamonds pour from africa

TG: little princess and her father should have invested in my wordmines because damn I produce and it don't stop

TG: that coal or carbon or whatever shit keeps on being shoveled right in and I keep compressing it and refining it so it can shine on

TG: i perfect the english language with the power of the forge of the true force of coolkid from within

TG: i am the forge its me

TT: I must agree in the sense that you certainly seem to be ignited by someone.

TG: what

TT: I've strayed too far from the topic at hand. I came to relay John's invitation.

TG: that can wait keep straying I want to see this new development

TT: Strider, don't you think it would be prudent to drop the witty banter and ask why I contacted you in the first place?

TG: no

TG: not when you decide to lay down some obtuse reference to game forges and my person after you decide I am not over said game

TG: see im curious about that instead

TG: broads like you don't drop shit like that out for the hell of it like the stork does babies or the enola gay does bombs

TG: nah you got an agenda and you want to get my goat by trying to put some nagging thought in my head and have me dwell on it

TG: and then try to ignore it and act all cool on it cause im always cool

TG: being uncool is nigh unconscionable for me

TT: As you have repeatedly established.

TG: and then not mention it for like ever and then you leave it as a seed of unrest to grow in my poor and ironically young and impressionable as shit brain or whatever like a watermelon seed entering in my ear that grows off the sicknasty energy of my awesome thoughtwaves alone

TG: until it busts my head open like one of its own fruitbabies on a Japanese beach in summer and infects the world with my fly fuckin mind matter

TG: so you can feed on the succulent red flesh of my actual melon and coolness infused metaphorical ear watermelon while you psychoanalyze the rind or some equally twisted shit

TG: well you do not have my goat and its currently munching on your poorly lobbed watermelon seed of some destruction

TG: i know your game sis and it aint happenin

TT: Darn. I had so been looking forward to that refreshing watermelon picnic.

TG: sorry no strider melon for you

TT: Unfortunate. Lamentable, even. Alas, my dear brother, this does not change the fact that John is hosting a Christmas party and you are invited.

TG: oh my gog

TG: here we go changing the subject my goat is chomping on that watermelon seed as we speak

TG: its useless rose give it up

TG: give up the forge reference reveal your secret intent

TT: You know, the fact that you so doggedly pursue one little quip illustrates to me an image of a goat choking and ambling over to my side of the playing field rather than a goat masticating at your side.

TG: whoa you have branched out of wizard porn and entered the realm of the furries

TG: I did not think you could get any freakier

TT: I said masticating, chumpass.

TG: but I know what you really meant

TT: Strider, that one was baseless, jejune, and childish even by your standards.

TG: oh really

TG: i thought it pretty fucking eloquently countered how you made a batshit reference to me as a forge to be ignited by someone

TG: that's pretty baseless jejune and childish

TT: ….

TT: You are not entirely facetious in your verbal lashings, methinks. I did not think I would get this much of a rise out of you for such a little insinuation.

TT: This goes deeper than I previously thought. Or rather, it burns brighter.

TG: okay rose thats enough of that

TG: what is egbert thinking putting all of us in one room for a holiday shindig

TG: he only needs me to make it a party

TG: and I dont even need him

TG: I am like a one man fiesta ole ole why would I bust my ass and leave this fucking awesome eternal celebration i have here where i am

TG: its like new york on new years up in here except without a douchenozzle announcer and no brainless bimbo singing pop shit

TG: its all sick jams and ill beats all the time

TT: David, the extremes to which you've taken absconding from my earlier "baseless, jejune, and childish" remark after pursuing t yourself is…

TT: …admittedly, very endearing. Not only that, it alerts me that you have obviously planted your own ideas of how much my friendly teasing implied, which had not been my intention.

TG: yeah right im sure you are just knitting gogdamned tapestries out of this yarn you are spinning with your spooky ass black magic needles

TT: Strider, it is you who has planted the flax seed of your imminent psychoanalysis doom, not I.

TT: The resulting fruit of the loom and my needles is indeed sweeter than any watermelon, I might add. Or are you supplying me with all this plush yarn in a gesture of irony?

TT: Not that it makes any difference as the word loses all meaning when you are through with it.

TG: fuck that noise

TG: so what did your ironically unironic work of art net you when you cashed it in for strider psychecash

TT: To use your phrase, "a goddamned killing", actually.

TG: yeah right

TG: they dont let that much out of the brain bank of dave strider at one time

TG: it would corrupt all you plebes to have that much of it at once

TT: Consider me as crooked as you are, Strider.

TG: whatever all your stridermonies are counterfeit

TG: you aint got shit

TT: Regardess, I am sending you the information regarding John's gala affair via email, so be sure to check it shortly.

TG: im checking it now

TG: I might feel enough pity on you poor impoverished people

TG: who are so desperate they call their monopoly money legit strider swagbucks so they can pretend to have some sense of worth even if its only through monetary means

TG: to grace you with my presence for a night

TT: We will all be sure to bow down to you and kiss your feet for being so gracious to interact with us in our lowly poverty.

TT: We might even offer up our finest maiden as a futile gesture of gratitude.

TG: nah I got bitches coming out of my ears when psychobabble aint trapping them in

TG: thats why I get headaches listening to you nak about shit

TG: the ladies just pile up in there and clog it up

TG: i cant hardly walk down the street without the fucking zombie apocalypse happening except with hot babes as the undead and dave strider as the last human

TG: you will be restraining you maiden rather than offering her

TT: Too bad. Jade would have looked quite cute, I must say, wrapped like a present and sitting beneath the tree.

TT: Yet in light of the dilemma you have presented, we may settle for chaining her to something much sturdier- like a bedpost- so we do not chance losing track of her in your hoard of zombie women.

TT: I suppose we can let her keep the bow on her head, though. She would relish that extra holiday touch.

TG: that is just wrong

TT: Oh?

TG: rose that is sick

TG: I mean really she is one of our best friends and johns sister for fucks sake

TT: Do you mean for fucking's sake?

TG: oh my god

TG: why would you even

TG: you know what lets not even go there

TG: you are sick

TG: enough said

TT: David, I just want you to know that I find your admittedly ingratiating defensive denial very touching.

TG: what the fuck rose

TT: I also feel I should share with you that Jade has been looking over my shoulder for the entire conversation and was actually the one to suggest the Christmas bondage.

TG: WHAT

TG: you are shitting me

TG: you are fucking kidding

TG: rose this is not cool

TG: I mean that in the most unironic way possible

TT: I am not joking, dear brother.

TG: OH MY GOD

TG: YES YOU ARE

TT: Alright, I fold if only because that sinister capslock whispers to me just how far I've gone.

TT: This ruse has gone on long enough. I admit I was fibbing.

TT: She is not privy to our conversation.

TT: But in my defense, my darling brother, it is very amusing to watch you drop that coolkid act "like it's hot", as one of your peabrained idols has put it.

TT: Truly, it is futile to deny secrets to me any longer.

TT: Dave?

TT: Dave, are you there?

-turntechGodhead [TG] is an idle chum!-

TT: My, so worked up that you neglected to log out. I believe this means that I have won.

TT: Honestly, I never thought it would ever be this easy or bittersweet.

TT: As for today's entry in the Dave Strider mental health log, no unusual developments have come about.

TT: The developments are to be expected in and of themselves, but they are simply a tad surprising to me in their intensity. It seems that "sick fire" in your forge consumes you rather than just remain a constant beacon of the obvious.

TT: I did not fully understand how passionate of a heart my little brother had before the game nor did I fathom precisely how much it really affects him in matters both in and outside of it.

TT: Dave, for the love of all things good, please be careful that you do not smother yourself in an effort to hide.

-tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] -

Dave did indeed attend the Christmas celebration John had set up ("I need you guys to eat this fruitcake and whatever else my dad bakes up, okay? I can hardly walk in the house without landing myself waist-deep in baked goods at this time of year!") and he even wore a Christmas sweater complete with an (ironic) illustration of _A Muppet Christmas_ done in thread just for the occasion.

He lost his cool only once when Jade greeted him when he first walked in.

When John gave him a ribbing about it Dave said that his spluttering and removal of Jade's arms from his person was because he felt he owed it to the host to get the first fistbunp or brohug or whatever passed for a greeting in the northwest during cold-as-fuck December.

Rose only smiled and offered to adjust the enormous bow Jade wore on top of her head- it had been meant for a last-minute wrapping job on her brother's second gift (December birthdays are always a hassle), but she had put it on her friend (_for safekeeping_, of course) and _forgotten_ to take it off.

"I personally think it suits Jade better than the package I wrapped for you," she said to him.

Jade laughed, oblivious, and led them all back into the living room. "I don't know about that. What do you think, Dave?"

He muttered some stupid reply as she distractedly lit the fireplace to warm up the room and sat down by him.

He had lost his cool only once, but he could see in Rose's eyes that he was not going to get it back.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey, guys. I wanted to hold off a while on posting this particular chapter because, WELL, it's not my forte, favorite, or most desired kind of topic. But in light of the fact that my computer suddenly has a virus (we think) and needs to go get fixed (which may take ten minutes or ten days, who knows!), I bit the bullet and stuck it on up here. Don't worry, squeamish ones- I'm squeamish myself so nothing too risque happens (that isn't avoided by choice cliches of figurative language, dude!) so I wouldn't worry about the rating going above T, which it *SHOULD* be already for Dave's language.

I refer to this chapter as_ THE BIG LONG RELATIONSHIP EXPOSITION WITH ADDED CHEMISTRYFAIL_ with the alternate label_ ALL THE METAPHORS ALL OF THEM_ with a secondary alternate being _JADE ISN'T THE BITCH DAVE IS._ The big joke that is my headcannon is that Dave is whipped (sorry bro)- you'll see what I mean if you read this installment.

Thank you to all of you have already watched, alerted, and ESPECIALLY reviewed thus far- if you haven't heard back from me it's 'cause of the aforementioned laptop issues but I promise I will respond when my computer time is more stable and at less risk. Thank you all so much and please continue to give me feedback and pointers/requests or encouragement or constructive criticism- helps me get better at writing and write faster. Thanks again!

...Oh, and I don't own Homestuck.

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><p><span>Sick Jave, Bro!<span>

_Maroon 5: This Love; Stephen Schwartz: As Long As You're Mine _

The trees on her planet had been tall and dark and each tangled together by the roots and branches so that they looked like one continuous entity that spread over and under the alabaster expanse of the pristine snow piled within their tendrils, an exquisite monochromatic spread of near-black and white broken only by the bloody crimson blossoms that opened up in a unanimous cry for the attention of the frigid stars above.

It was ironic that the same imagery had also eerily described him in her arms when he had been dying (one of many times, truly, but only one of two times that it actually mattered to him); her ebony hair had draped over the white of his shirt and skin as his blood had slowly seeped out in pools beneath the icy air, as much of an eyesore on his milky complexion as his rouged eyes would have been if they had only stayed open (and devoid of his sunglasses) a moment longer to look beyond her dazzling gown and capture her bright green ones in a whisper of apology before the dark lenses of death inevitably covered them.

This time, though, he found the same color motif poetic and he could hardly bring himself to feel any bitterness or unease about it when, before he knew it, his pale fingers had tangled themselves in the jungle of her hair (looking for all the world like frost on ashen bark)with the intent to bring her face closer to his so he could tell her, secretly, quietly, almost silently and in gentler tones he'd ever thought himself capable of, that he—

She pushed herself away from him and regarded him for a moment with a taciturn air before languidly sliding one set of icicle digits through his own fair hair while the other disentangled his hands (which were not cold, in fact, but smoldering, like coals burned to white remains) from her charred locks. He didn't protest at her disengagement and let her limit him to simply having the lines on his wanting, heated palms traced with the pads of her own frozen fingers.

Jade was inviting and warm normally, but in moments of private intimacy she was aloof, distant, and unintentionally chilly like she never knew how to accept the deeper affection being given to her and so shut up her walls and adjusted the fireplaces within her heart to discourage passersby from staying too far in for too long. She loved visitors and treated them well, but if threatened, she banished them from the premises by any means necessary-her controlled and homey fires died out and sprang back with a vengeance if need be while Dave acted in basically the opposite way.

He was usually cool, but not in the sense that he commonly allowed others to interpret coolness as; no, Dave discouraged entry and mercilessly froze anyone who dared get too close to him without his consent. When he was feeling especially volatile he would lace his ice of ire and irony with his flame in a deadly flash-freeze-burn. He flayed pushy, potential occupants because he knew that if he let them inside, he would become despondent if they left; he would risk being conquered and bound to serve his new ruler hand and foot.

And, given his (skillfully bottled, but never completely controlled) passionate nature, he would prove to be quite double-edged as his adored master would unknowingly be assigned the fate of feeding, fanning, or controlling the fire when Dave himself was too burned out or too conflagrate to do it alone. Jade's earthen mastery let her keep herself under control with relative ease while he was at the mercy of his unpredictability. If someone were to capture him and stay (he would do everything in his power to prevent the former and ensure the latter), they would be bound to help maintain him or chance being consumed by him.

While the Knight kept his true self hidden out of sight and deep within the heated labyrinthine fortress of his heart, the Witch's complex was very open and only shut down if her necessary secrets were disturbed- her heart of hearts was nigh unattainable, frozen in plain sight at the center of an Eden paradise while his screamed and reached out from behind a nigh impenetrable barricade like a blazing flower on barren snow.

She would never let anyone break her heart off of its pedestal- it was hers to choose when and who to present it to for safekeeping when she was ready, much like his granting entry to his lonely furnace could not be forced.

She was so close and yet so far away as her starry eyes continued to examine his lifelines in tandem with her gelid fingers. Eventually, he wound his grip around her hands and kissed them as if she was nobility and he her lowly soldier.

Her hands were so cold. He held them against either side of his neck to try and thaw them.

If Jade were to tell you that she felt like she were being taken advantage of by Dave Strider, she would be lying. True, the events leading up to her meeting Dave for the first time had been the products of sheer manipulation, but the boy himself would do nothing so underhanded or inconsiderate- at least, not to her.

Anything he did was with her permission, spoken or otherwise, and although he liked to push his limits, the moment she called him on it he would step right back in line and wait, patiently, for whatever punishment or reward she bestowed upon him.

In one of her spur-of-the-moment psychology lessons, Rose had told Jade that girls frequently (and often unknowingly) were attracted to male figures that mimicked their fathers and Jade couldn't help but find Dave's behavior towards her to be much like that of Becquerel.

Jade did not know if a dog counted as her paternal figure by Freudian standards, but she found the loyalty and trust very familiar and familiarity in an alien world brought her unheard of levels of comfort.

After all, she had spent most of her life alone on an island and while she was competent and confident enough to brave the depths of the wild natural jungle and emerge victorious, her routine had a simple set goal of surviving, existing, and following the instructions given to her in her dreams without any doubts while the concrete jungle was full of doubt. There was no reliable harvest, no unoccupied space, and so many social customs and nuances beyond politeness and kindness and honesty and decency that had come natural to her (or embedded within her by her grandfather at a young age) that she could not learn through the use of technology or her interactions with the Prospitians. People were complex and she really couldn't prepare herself for a continual onslaught of them without firsthand experience.

When she felt like she was suffocating from constant social overload, shoved around in crowds or engaged in fights at restaurants (like those with Karkat but without the undercurrent of goodness), she ran in a fury that she thought would lead her to some breathing room- perhaps she could calm down and talk to Rose- but instead found herself with Dave and his fortress of solitude.

She stormed around him in a confused huff and he, after a little warning barrage that was standard procedure for someone like him, decided she wasn't a threat, opened the gates, and let her walk right on in. She appreciated the warmth that he gave off when he thawed his cool act and felt better about things quickly- life wasn't so oppressive with him around, just like how his presence had solved her many crises during youthful war games. Dave was her safehouse, like always, but she didn't want to overstay her welcome and thus never lingered long.

Each time she got up and left almost as easily as she had come in, she remained unaware of how his face had fallen behind his eyewear and neglected to notice that the flames behind him began burning an infinitesimal amount brighter.

From within his furnace, though, he knew all too well what she did to him and so he surreptitiously sought her out, too.

These visits- both literal and figurative, heart-to-hearts, really- with one another became mutually frequent, with him strolling through the cooler parts of her garden to take the edge off his fury (and be just be close to her, if he were being honest, but he would always lightly tiptoe around her heart of hearts) and her curling up in the warmer rooms of his castle to ward off the frostbite that the world had threatened to let take hold of her that day.

Jade did not fully realize that he didn't regard her occasional excursions into his more reserved feelings as casually as she did and Dave was not so depraved that he'd forcefully drag her inside and chain her to the scalding throne to be his queen. Instead, he left the gates open for her and tried to coax her into staying whenever he could.

So, naively, she gave a small smile as he flattened her hands against his neck and rubbed small circles where her fingers rested, laughing a little when she felt him relax and exhale- she could tell that he had closed his eyes from behind his dark lenses. With a second light laugh, she made to move one set of fingers to ruffle his hair and stroke his face like she would Becquerel, but his hand, which had been encasing hers like a silk glove, gently guided her trajectory towards his sunglasses instead. At the urging of the light pressure of his fingers, she gripped the frames and lifted them away from his face, finally leaving them to rest on top of his head.

He kept his eyes downward and moved her hand in the same direction, adjusting his own to cup around her fingers so he could kiss them again.

The warmth he left there lingered like a brand's mark.

She saw a fleeting splash of red dawn flash as he furtively looked up to monitor her reaction, but it set almost as soon as it rose and he placed another kiss on her hand immediately after, this one just below her wrist.

And another above it.

And third above that, and a fourth higher still and a fifth above her elbow and a sixth on her shoulder.

He was taking his time, but her mind was registering everything through a delayed filter- she was a little perplexed at his actions. Slowly, he slid her arm back around his neck and brought his hands around her waist to pull her closer before she had even thought to respond to him.

Finally, a squeak bubbled to the surface of her consciousness and she relocated her palms to his chest as the flames licked up her collarbone and neck (what number kisses they were, she had no idea- they'd all melted together to become one trailing blaze) and nervously absorbed the heatwaves radiating from his mouth to her ear.

At her soft protest, he halted. His face was buried in the side of her head and his expression was hidden, but his shoulders, now light from the lack of the weight of her arms upon them, slumped. Slowly, painfully, dutifully, he drew himself away from her.

Jade shivered once from the sudden disappearance of the source of the warmth that had been weaving itself in the ridges of her ear. Her insides, however, never stopped quivering when she found herself staring right into the startling blossoms of color of his eyes.

The ruby glint they exhibited alone was intimidating as it bellowed out its presence from among the faded palette of his skin, but the barely contained intensity churning within them mere centimeters away from hers was what truly surprised Jade.

For all of his talk, Dave was not as chill and independent as he tried to be and his eyes spoke volumes about it.

He shut himself in with a barely contained fire that was started and fed by whatever stores of feeling he was unable to expel from himself without exposing himself as capable of them- wrath, sadness, fear, passion, desire, and love all swirled together in a chaotic mix of red upon red.

Yes, he was burning alive. To ask someone to try and help him control the fire wasn't unthinkable, but few people did he trust enough to reign the flames in without exploiting him completely afterwards. Furthermore, he did not know how or who to ask.

He spent so long defending the spires of his offensive towers that he wasn't sure he could risk inviting anyone in.

Except her. She didn't want to use him and she didn't hate him for his spitfire and cutting blizzards of insults and she didn't fear that he would burn down the garden she kept her heart in- she was one of only four who had faith in him and made him feel like he actually had a purpose in this world. And, of those four, she was the one he not only had the desire but ability to protect- she could bend the fire and give it somewhere to go- and that made her the only person he wanted to let in to stay.

Forever.

He was burning and through his eyes he was trying very, very hard to ask for her help before he incinerated himself. Attempting to tell her in words had been halted by her own command.

And there was more past his unspoken plea; Jade saw that, although he acted like one for her, Dave was not a dog. He was not a child anymore, either, as they had both been the last time he had been so vulnerable in her arms. He was a knight, yes, but that was an extra mantle placed upon him like a frame around a picture and not the true content.

She kept forgetting, or perhaps simply never understood that Dave was a man.

He deserved to be treated like one, too- a real one with flesh and blood needs and emotions. He was not just a puppet or toy knight for her to play with and expect to be able to put down and pick up at will with no consequences. Unwittingly, she had been jerking his hidden heart around from its place within the fortress- it was the source of his fires, after all- and it was leaping out of Dave's hold like a rampant frog trying to escape confinement, casting embers everywhere and destroying all his cold walls.

He was falling apart without her, damned if he'd admit it.

Patiently and with all the restraint he could muster, he watched the stars in her eyes (eyes like her name, her name like music and the music was perfect) shine in the light and mimic the dance of the flare within him.

He had not yet let go of her waist and she could practically see smoke rising from his fingertips as they singed her clothes. And she was so close that he could smell her, hear her breathing, almost taste her… she was so close that he was near tears.

He needed her, but he also needed her to want him. That was paramount.

For an agonizing eternity, he waited for her to make the next move.

When he finally felt her push him back, he let his hands slide lifelessly off her and closed his eyes to brace himself for the pyre awaiting him below. He succumbed to being left to the wildfire, helplessly on his back while she was once more an unreachable green sun.

He felt her green-glossed dark hair brush over him like the soft, whisking touch of charcoal branches and felt snowy fingers remove his sunglasses from his head- a chessboard motif of silicon on a dove's wing- but his eyelids didn't bloom apart accompanied by gasps of adoration until he felt her lips on his.

He wasted no time in wrapping his arms around her and pulling her down, sending cinders through the air as she collapsed into him.

Rapidly, she felt the temperature climb higher press him upwards, until soon he was upright and her crossed legs encircled his waist like a ring of stones. Using his tongue, which seared her mouth in an unending series of kisses, and his body, which constantly swelled against her, he tipped her backwards in a hungry advance. She countered by shoving herself forwards to ground him again; plants were flammable and ice was meltable, but the underlying earth, while moveable, could not be demolished by the fire.

Besides, he needed her to ward off the bonfire that was destroying him rather than empower it. She could build him up later but he required dousing right now.

He choked a little and stole a short breath before simultaneously reclaiming her lips and tearing at her clothes with even greater fervor than before, if that were possible, accenting his movements by tight squeezes until she let out a small noise and lifted her chin.

She wasn't sure, but she swore she heard him croon, "I love you" into her throat before planting his lips back on it and anything else he could reach.

The water trickling from her heart's once-frozen pedestal paired with the warmed, tropical air would be best used nourishing the plants of her inner garden anyways, she figured.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey, guys! Computer is now virus-free and I'm here to deliver into your hot little hands a chapter of Davesprite and Jade, inspired by the update of 12/19/11 because I felt like Davesprite needed some love. Also a certain one of you asked about it and I was all, "YES I WANNA GO THAT ROUTE." Lastly, I mean, come on, all the Daves love Jade. All of them. I kind of plan on using that thought later on because can you imagine all the shenanigans a zillion Daves can cause? Oh wait, you've read Homestuck. You can imagine that.

Oh, and I refer to Davesprite as Dave sometimes because, let's face it, "Davesprite" is awkward to say all the time and he is still a Dave, technically.

Thank you so much to all my lovely watchers and readers and reviewers thus far! I really appreciate your feedback and I hope you will continue to comment and constructively critique as you see fit.

I do not own Homestuck!

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><p><span>Sick Jave, Bro!<span>

_The Beatles: Blackbird _(DUUUUUHHHHH)

"Ha ha ha, you fucked up," he told John as the message in a bucket hurled itself into the portal Jade created for it.

His blue buddy cursed and submitted to letting his spirited friend give him a ribbing in real life, but soon he was swept away into the crowd of salamanders and turtles and (ugh) nakkodiles and Dave the sprite was left with no chums to pester.

Except Jade Harley.

"Feelin' so useless now, miss Witch of Space?" he said, nonchalantly gliding over to her.

She smiled and he suddenly felt as small as he had been not ten minutes ago when she had actually been his horizon. Her newfound joy was like sunshine. She was sunshine.

Come to think of it, that was no exaggeration, albeit she was a little greener than anyone was used to.

"You were right, I guess. Suddenly I just… knew what I needed to do and did it! It was so silly of me to think that I was useless earlier."

"Don't worry about it. It's all fixed now, isn't it?"

"Well, I wouldn't say it is all fixed." Her happy smile faded and she looked down at the planets in her hands. "But I know that we have taken a huge step in bringing everything closer to being that way."

Davesprite gestured towards her with his palms upturned. "Well, yeah, but I meant with you. I… we can't have you going off and deciding halfway through this thing that you just can't do it and bursting into tears again. I mean, it's your party and you can cry if you want to," he held up a hand and a wing to keep her from interrupting his flippantly expressed concern, "or at least, if you need to. There's no shame in that. It's just that psychologically damaging you would be a disaster on a cosmic scale." He chuckled. "And I mean that in both a literal and figurative sense."

Jade knew that while her feathered friend held a predominant sarcastic monotone, the undercurrent of sincerity in his face and voice was real.

""Thanks, Dave," she eventually said, casting her gaze to him.

Her eyes shone with gratitude and Dave swore he could see forever in them and knew right then and there that he wanted to do everything he could to keep them trained on him rather than wander off into the visions of the universe she was now a guardian of. "We can't have you breaking on me again. Or us. That'd blow. And besides, the-"

Whatever trite wordplay he was about to come up with dissolved in his mouth when she came up to him and tugged on his good wing.

"I'm pretty okay right now, but you aren't and we should probably focus on fixing that instead of sealing up the cracks in my newly- built confidence." She circled his waist with her arms.

Her fur tickled his face and he let out a startled puff of air at her intrusion to his personal space. Amusingly, her white ears reacted and bent back at the disturbance and he moved to put his nose in her hair and pull her in closer.

Before he could, he felt her laughter reverberate off his chest and her body heat fade as she took a step backwards. "That tickles! And even after I made that silly metaphor just for you!"

"It could have used some polishing before you offered it up in hopes of winning the great king Dave's praise, but he definitely noticed." He had also noticed the soiled bandage previously encasing his middle in her hand and realized she had not been trying to hug him at all.

"Excuse me, can you please wash this and find me a new bandage and a first-aid kit?" She handed the dirty cloth to an eager nearby salamander.

"I'm really not sure disinfecting a sprite wound is consequential. I think it's representational or some shit for spiritual damage on a different plane, kind of like how a health meter is just a way to show how fucked you are so far rather than show how much blood or something your avatar has lost, so-"

She shooshed him and gave him a pap on the back to lead him to the edge of the ship before turning to her yellow consort again. "Can you please bring me a brush, too, if it is handy?"

The salamander bubbled in gleeful compliance and scurried off to fulfill her request before she could even thank it. Beside her, Davesprite found Jade's perplexed expression amusing, especially since her new mutt anatomy amplified her confused look.

She had been their most recent savior, after all, so it made sense that they would want to grant her every wish. This was hardly like the original Wizard of Oz- no, here Dorothy and the Witch were one and the little people adored and revered her (and her little dog ears, too.)

The other three children of legend also made quite a splash in the strange land of Sburb, though, what with John mindlessly traipsing around and inspiring awe and Rose near-heartlessly using every advantage she could think of to move them forward. And although Dave Strider the Knight had cowered away from the limelight, he had certainly proved himself to be useful and formidable as well.

Dave Strider the sprite was just a flying monkey.

He blocked out those thoughts and cocked his head. "I get the logic behind the medical stuff, which is a moot point, but what are you going to do with that brush?"

A small sigh escaped her lips as she let go of him and planted her feet in a good-naturedly indignant stance and addressed the green atmosphere whizzing by in front of them. "It's the principal of treating the gaping hole in you that counts, okay?"

He let the brush question go in favor of the more promising snide comment. "If we were doing things on principle we'd be still playing an unscratched game just to say we did it the right way."

"I wish it were that easy."

Dave ground his back teeth as he realized how many negative thoughts he'd probably just fished out of the muck for which they'd just warped time and space to try to scratch out of their lives. "Hey," he said gently, "It'll be hard but I know we can do it. Nothing that's worth it is easy." A shaded iris wandered to the side of his face so that Jade could see it from where she was standing. "At least, it isn't easy if your name isn't Dave Strider and the bigass thing you are attempting is being so fucking cool it hurts. Totally worth it, though."

At first she giggled, but when his severed wing distracted her she stopped. "Does it hurt?" she inquired.

"…No."

She narrowed her eyes. There was no lying to her and no dodges (no matter how artful) went completely unnoticed.

"Like I said," he succumbed to changing his answer, "totally worth it." Dave crossed his arms and glued his vision to the viridian expanse of air in the hopes of staving off the onslaught of concern he'd just unleashed.

Luckily, the plucky little salamander arrived to save him with some materials and a bucket of water. "All we could find on board, Miss Spacey Heroine," it babbled.

Jade thanked it and it shuffled away with an affectionate beam of bubbles emanating from its mouth.

"Looks like somebody likes you," Dave teased.

Her huge green orbs grew and she whipped around to face him. "No! He was just being nice!" She chanced a glance to the crowd of adoring amphibians and reptiles (respectfully keeping a ten foot radius away from them despite their obvious hovering) You really think that salamander is an admirer?" Gently, she turned him around and started cleaning the hole in his abdomen but kept one eye trained on the consorts.

"One of many," he muttered.

"So I have a bunch of lovesick turtles and salamanders and nakkodiles?"

He shielded his wince from her with his shades as she dabbed at him and shrugged. "Nah, you got other stuff, too."

Then he realized what he said and wished he had not been raised with his mouth set on automatic no matter what the sicknasty rapping rewards usually were.

"Like what?" Methodically, she began fold the cloth the salamander had brought her so that it became the right size to wrap around her injured friend's waist.

Open foot, insert mouth. "That Karkat seems fond of you. Seemed like he was pestering you an awful lot." She set down her impromptu bandage and cleaned Dave's body some more.

"Oh, no. That was just Karkat being Karkat. He just wanted to scream at somebody."

Secretly, Dave congratulated himself on his nice abscond, but Jade's next words proved congratulations premature.

"But he's actually pretty nice once you get to know him."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. He flies off the handle a lot but he was really helpful after my… spriteself created a big fiasco."

"…Huh."

"Yeah, he even tried to apologize to me and everything, in his way. He's really not that bad at all, just frustrates easily. He even kind of helped with the frog hunting adventure- he's a really hard worker." She reclaimed her folded sheet and began to wrap it around Dave's middle.

Dave didn't show it but his blood was absolutely boiling in a jealous rage. Fuck that abscond, he should have manned up and aggressed this issue rather than dance around it and hear about some fuckass trying to pull a heel-face turn to an emotionally vulnerable girl.

Had he known about his newly-tiered godself's friendship with Terezi and Karkat's conversation with him about it, he probably would have lost it and started inner self-loathing fires with wild abandon. And those fires wouldn't have even been the sick kind. Then again, they might've been quite sick- the lovesick kind. The whole situation was groan-worthy.

Jade finished dressing Dave's stomach and moved on to his damaged wing.

"I think Karkat just wants to be friends with people but doesn't know how."

"So you never told me what you planned to do with that brush."

Startled by his abrupt subject change, Jade raised her eyebrows and peeked at him around his plentiful plumage. He guarded his expression by pretending to adjust his sunglasses.

"Well." she decided that there wasn't much she could do for his clipped appendage and picked up what had grabbed his attention instead. "I know you have feathers and not fur, but I figured I could groom you."

"What? You think I don't keep myself clean or something?"

She gaped. "Oh, no! I just…" her voice got quiet. "Bec always liked it when I brushed him and I wanted to do something nice for you." She huffed and regained her chipper bravado. "I actually kind of like you, you know?"

As expected, Dave's face remained unmoved (Striders, even sprites of Striders, did not show emotion- that was for lesser creatures) but he could feel his feathers puffing themselves out as a warm feeling of euphoria and anxiety spread throughout his body.

It did not matter that Jade's comment was most likely platonic in nature. The fact that she was at all fond of him- just hearing her say it (it wasn't like they weren't friends already) - was the greatest news he'd gotten for the entire duration of his life as a sprite.

Still, his wings and chest were inflating at a rapid rate and he could hear Jade spitting out feathers as they engulfed her.

"Am I making you nervous?"

Lies were useless and escaping impossible, but he could still distract with a showy enough ruse. "Just making it easier for you to manscape."

It worked and pretty soon he felt hands shake as she gently pushed him into a sitting position on the edge of the ship as her frame was wracked with chuckles. "You are so silly!"

"Thanks, I'm here all week." And longer, if the three years Jade predicted held true. Honestly, he had a feeling that they would finagle their way out of such a long wait, but if a three year trip meant that long with Jade and him and a brush and no Karkat and no real Dave to take her away, he was completely okay with it.

He hated himself for thinking like that.

Jade, who had started humming as she brushed, noticed his mood change and paused in smoothing out his wings.

"What is it?"

"Hunh?"

"You… shooshed down your feathers suddenly. Is everything okay? Do you want me to stop?"

"No, no, it wasn't you. You're all good. Proceed."

Being a concerned and aggravatingly perceptive female (in Dave's world, there was apparently no other kind), she did not. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He stayed stock still for a moment. There was no lying to Jade and there was no effective way to run.

He found that he could hide nothing from her to be one of the worst things about her.

So he just said, "No, I don't want to right now" and she nodded and kept on brushing, dropping the issue completely.

He found that she would let him keep secrets anyway to be one of the best things about her, a quality that shone almost as brightly as her starry eyes.

The silence that fell wasn't uncomfortable, but Dave was known as both a human and a sprite to abhor such a doldrum. He tilted his head backwards to look at her face.

"Hey Jade," he said, "Caw caw."

She grinned and nudged him with her shoulder. "Woof woof."

He smirked in reply and closed his eyes, leveling his head and leaning back into her while she kept messing with his feathers.

The Knight of Time might get mad, he told himself.

And then, the more Davesprite thought about it, the solution was simple and appealed to all parties involved:

Fuck him.


	5. Chapter 5

_MERRY CHRISTMAS! Part one of a multiple-parter, this one with a Jade-point-of-view bias. Yes's song Dreamtime (and Yes in general) is actually ideal for Homestuck as a whole (the songs are long, but just look at those lyrics!) but I feel Dreamtime's are ESPECIALLY appropriate for Dave and Jade in particular. _

_(Dreamtime begins where every song is the perfect place_

_words never spoken are strongest resounding._

_Life forces meant for us to remember the stars, the earth._

_Still, we forget! So asleep in this dreamtime,_

_lost in this dreamtime daze...)_

_I hope you will see what I mean. And if anyone wants a link to my "Sick Jave, Bro!" playlist, I can give it to you. But it's kind of lame. XD_

_Anyway, here's fic of Homestuck, a story I do not own._

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><p><em>Yes: Dreamtime<em>

-gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]-

GG: hi there!

TG: yes indeed its high there on that tall place over there why don't you throw yourself off it

GG: you are right

GG: the tower here is pretty high but why would I do that?

GG: I do not feel like flying right now because I want to talk to you!

TG: what

TG: what the fuck is your problem

GG: there are no problems here!

TG: look man if youre high you better have some pretty damn hysterical hallucinations to impart upon me otherwise your ass is grass

TG: an ass as laced with dope as the grass youre on

TG: the kind of grass i will make burst into flames and go up in smoke

TG: and ill get high from whatever sick burn i lay upon your flammable posterior

TG: i start sick fires like no other ive never been caught but believe me i put professional arsonists to shame

GG: i am not high on pot! just on life! ;D

TG: oh god youre one of those assholes

TG: alright look im sure you took one of my blogs or whatever seriously and thats fine in fact thats how I prefer it

GG: i do not care about that right now! i just wanted to talk to you!

TG: i have things to do im a busy guy why should I waste my time shooting the shit with you

GG: oh gosh are you really in the middle of something? :O gee i did not mean to be a nuisance!

GG: we can talk later if you need to go

TG: if you dont have some information imperative to my life right now and you dont have any stories to tell me as a result of tripping so many balls that chuck e cheese up and built the worlds largest kiddie ball pit around you

TG: both in terms of area covered and plastic piece of shit ball per square foot ratio

TG: then i wouldnt bother pestering me ever again unless you wanted those pants of yours set ablaze without even having to lie once

TG: and if youre a pedophile your junk would be burned off right along with it

TG: that kiddie playpool set up around you would be unironically illegal

TG: by which i mean totally uncool

TG: and even if you did manage to get your hands on me believe me bub you couldnt handle all this im way too much for you

GG: ewwwwwwwww!

GG: that is disgusting! and i am not a pedophile!

GG: you are really testy when you are awake!

TG: oh my god you watch me sleep

GG: well yeah kind of! How else do you think we got to know each other in the first place?

TG: you are a pedophile see i knew it

TG: and youre even a creepy one

TG: creepier than that creep of a creeper on scooby doo

TG: except instead of a monster face you put on this nice friendly mask for unsuspecting meddling kids and then you ask them to play detective with you in your mystery machine

TG: which is actually just a big lameass white van instead of a really tricked out shaggin wagon with psychedelic flowers and words

TG: still a shaggin wagon though if you know what i mean

TG: dress them up as a dog cause that's what youre into

TG: and then you make them follow the clues down below

GG: i am going to stop you before you finish that really nasty metaphor and i decide that you are hopeless!

TG: whatever man it doesnt matter how much you deny it I can sniff out one of your kind from miles away

TG: like shaggy and scooby do scooby snacks

TG: shit im pedo furry bait but I aint gonna get in the back of your car

TG: but if you wanna pretend to stand a chance at least paint your damned van with some slick art i mean really put some effort into this

GG: i am! i am the only one of us who is! all you do is lay on your bed half awake!

GG: it is hard for me to figure out what is dreambabble and what is not!

TG: with a partner as shitty as you its no wonder youre not worth my effort

GG: dave!

GG: ((((

TG: so youre trying to weird me out by using the name on my blog okay

GG: no! i know your name is dave strider because that is what you told me yourself!

GG: your dreamself technically

GG: but still!

TG: yeah sure what else did i tell you in my fitful groanings

GG: dave ((((((((((

TG: i kept saying my own name

TG: jesus are you telling me that you were so lackluster in your romancing that you made me play at both sides

GG: stop stop stop stop!

TG: i mean thats just sad man give up

TG: your mysteries in the mystery machine will forever remain unsolved case closed

GG: you told me about how lil' cal is your brother's favorite puppet

GG: and how your bro is the coolest guy in the universe

GG: and he uses really shitty swords and trains you to use them too and how you want to be an irony master like him

GG: you also said you would show me the beats you recorded!

GG: or offered to let me hear them

GG: I think that is sooo coooool!

GG: just like you!

TG: someones feeding you crap stock lines or something

TG: you dont know me and I dont know you

TG: adios chum see you on the other side of my rancorous trollpen

GG: you also told me that your eyes are red!

TG: what

TG: thats complete bullshit

TG: totally unbelievable

TG: what but rabbits and the son of satan have red eyes

TG: youre bluffing and you arent even good at it

GG: it is all fine and well if you do not believe me right now because I will prove to you that I know you and you know me!

TG: yeah like how are you going to come spirit me away in my sleep

GG: well yeah!

GG: more or less… if you want to go flying!

GG: but I guarantee that tonight you will dream of me

GG: and i am going to bring you flowers!

TG: oh wow hold me im swooning i can already see the beginnings of festive orange letters tracing themselves on the side of your big creeper van

GG: you are so silly dave!

GG: see you tonight! 3 3 3

-gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG]-

Jade leaned back against the headboard of her bed and sighed. Dave was surprisingly difficult when he was awake! She had only seen him once in his tower on Derse, but he seemed pretty docile then. Of course, he wasn't completely in control of himself at the time, either.

He wasn't fully lucid, she could tell, but he certainly wasn't fully asleep- he could respond to her and speak in complete sentences, but they were still always through some kind of filter like the dark glasses over his face restricted his consciousness as much as his vision.

Never in her wildest dreams (because for her, delving into Derse constituted as a tame dream) would she have considered exploring the dark side and its moon if it weren't for the clouds of Skaia. She had seen glimpses of John and Rose and Dave on their quest for many, many years in the sky, always waiting with baited breath to meet them all but always unsure of where they slumbered (except John, of course. He was a noble example of honesty and obliviousness to the point of absurdity) until she had caught a glimpse of Rose dressed in robes in a complimentary contrast to Jade's own nightgown.

From there, it was a simple matter of looking up information on Derse in the Royal Prospitian library and mustering up the gumption to fly that far into the darkness to have a look herself.

Beautiful Rose slept placidly, like a princess in a gothic fairytale, except for when she scrawled on the walls like a toddler- Jade found it particularly amusing to watch the perfectly quaffed and silently dignified porcelain doll of a girl curl her fist around pens, lipsticks, brushes, or anything she could get her hands on and slather nonsense all over her wall like she was recording in stone a history of all events of import for generations to refer to later in times of need. Considering that Jaspers' mention was vital to earning her classy friend's conscious trust, though, Jade eventually considered Rose's sleepwritings to be as important as their scribe thought (little did she know that even after that she was downplaying their significance.)

"MEOW" was the only clue Jade needed to figure out that Rose had a beloved cat and she got this hint many times over in screaming purple-pink graffiti and Jade's reply to her sleepy friend's feline soliloquy, while bubbly and excited, was nowhere near as obnoxious.

"Hi there, Rose. You do not know me yet, but my name is Jade and we are going to be really good friends! In fact, we are going to be best friends!" Happily, she told her all about herself and the great adventure they were going to have together.

After all, it was only right that Jade introduce and explain herself, especially since she had barged right on into the tower uninvited! Not that Rose cared enough to do anything about it.

Honestly, there wasn't much else to say to or do with the comatose girl besides read the writing on her wall and move on.

Jade gave Rose's hand a squeeze when she left (she always said goodbye to John that way, too) and made the short trip to Dave's tower.

When she found him lying on his bed amongst cryptic wall scrawling in the same manner as the other two children, she sighed, disheartened, and considered removing his glasses but had the eeriest feeling that he might get mad if she actually took them off. Instead she hovered in circles around his head in an attempt to see past the lenses without touching them. (She might as well try to get to know him better by seeing his face if she couldn't talk to him directly, she reasoned.) After a few minutes of that tomfoolery, she planted her feet on the floor of the tower and tried to peek at his eyes by looking up at them from under the shades.

She shoved her face next to his and let out a huff when the frames of her own glasses inhibited her Dave-eye-viewing. Undeterred, she took hers off and tried again.

Of course, she could hardly see without her spectacles so this plan proved to be a failure as well.

Eventually, she gave an exasperated squeal and resigned herself to reaching out and taking his hand off his chest in an effort to shake it in greeting, but her warm hello was quickly drowned out by a bark of surprise when Dave gripped hers back.

Startled, she jerked backwards and he used her retreat to help him sit up.

"Hey…" he said, slinging his legs over the side of the bed to face her.

Jade stammered in an effort to regain composure. "How long have you been awake?"

He was unreadable behind his oversized sunglasses.

"I mean, were you watching me trying to see your face? I am sorry, I was just really curious. If there is something wrong with your eyes I was not going to make fun of you or anything, it is just that you wear those infuriatingly shady shades and it is hard to know what you are thinking and they look cool and stuff and I guess I just wanted to see what is underneath them and, and… I guess seeing coolness unbridled would be way too much for me, huh?"

She giggled and proceeded to shake his hand, which was still adhered to hers, like she had originally intended. It felt limp now. "Oh! I am so rude. I know you but you do not know me. I am Jade Harley."

"…'m… Dave Strider…" he said it slowly, like he really had to think about what was going on.

"It is nice to meet you!" She grinned and scooped up both of his hands and pressed them together between hers. "We are going to have so much fun, Dave! I thought we would not get to do things until later, but if you are awake now then we can go and have some fun! Can you show me Derse? It seems a little gloomy but I am sure it is just as wonderful as Prospit! Oh, I cannot wait to show you Prospit!" she babbled on some more and hovered a little off of her tiptoes to bob up and down in the air with Dave's wide blackened eyespaces following her by imperceptible degrees. "I know I am probably freaking you out right now, but do you want to do something together?"

"…Derse?"

"Yes! That is where we are. The moon of Derse, the dark side of Skaia's universe!"

"What… like… Pink Floyd?"

"Huh?"

"You… tell me about… dark side of the… moon but you… don't know… the band…" He let out a sigh that Jade wasn't sure what to make of. Was he disappointed or just tired? His head nodded forward and stopped on his chest like he was lamenting the holes in her musical knowledge.

"Dave, are you making fun of me?"

He gave another sigh.

"That's not very nice! Please stop acting like you are too cool to talk to me!" He was unresponsive.

When he fell forward and into her, she quickly caught him and discovered that he was snoring and probably unaware that he'd snubbed her for the past minute and a half.

"Dave! I thought you were awake!" She pushed him back towards the bed and shook him a little.

Immediately, he stirred. "Mmm… I'm awake. Barely… Not knowing… Pink Floyd isn't that much of… a tragedy…" he gave a small laugh. "Better music out there…"

"Like what kind of music?"

"Too many to… say… I'll show you… sometime. Lay down some sick…nasty jams and…" He pointed to a table full of equipment in the corner of his room. "Check there later… I'm clearly out of… it…"

"You record music?"

"…'N remix it," he added.

"Wow! Who taught you?" Jade let go of his shoulders but kept her palms up in case he toppled over again.

Dave half-smiled. "My Bro. The coolest guy in the universe."

Jade dropped her arms. Dave seemed stable. "How is he so cool? I've seen you do some really cool stuff, yourself!"

"Bro is… ninja master of cool. He uses some… shitty… swords, though. He is teaching me… to use them and be… ironic, too… I'm nowhere near his level."

Jade grinned. "I bet you will surpass him one day. Believe me when I tell you that I saw you do some really, really, really super cool stuff."

"…How was I… what… cool?"

He was fading again. She shouted in his ear. "So cool!"

"…What… what was it?"

"Soooo cooooool!"

She could see his eyebrows furrow together. "No, really… like what… did I… do?"

With a giggle, she lifted off the ground and circled around him again. "I cannot tell you! It is not a good idea to spoil too much at once! But please, just believe me when I say that I think you are cool already and are going to become even cooler!"

To Jade's delight, Dave began to levitate towards her and slowly uncurl himself so his knees were lightly bent in midair and his hands were at his sides. "How… do you know?"

"Clouds!" she was giddy that he could fly after her and began a game of impromptu flight tag in the room, darting just a few feet away from him whenever he began to get close. Not only was it fun, like Marco Polo, it kept him moving and therefore aware.

"Huh?"

"In Skaia, the big chessboard kingdom between Prospit and Derse! The clouds show the future and the past and the present!"

"So… you mean to say you're a… fortune-teller in… the sky… on a chess…board near… profits…?"

"Prospit, not profits! And sort of, but not really- there's more to it than that. But I can tell you when you are awake in the real world."

"Don't think… dreaming is what I'm doing… it's insane," she saw him flinch as he realized he was flying, "…you must be… high on pot…" he swallowed. "Or I am… I'm… flying. Insane."

"No, you are not insane! I know this is all a little strange to you, but it is all supposed to happen this way!"

He looked at her goofy grin for a long time and his expression was hidden except for the thin line he drew with his lips, like he was trying to figure out if he should believe Jade or not. "I think…" he finally said, "I think… that this is still pretty… damn insane."

She noticed that he never questioned her assurance that this was predestined and beamed.

"It's insane, the air this man has got!" she said, rushing over to him to grab his hands again. "Let's see just how insane it really is! I am guessing you have never explored Derse, so why not go see it!"

She felt him hold her hands tighter as she drifted backwards and pulled him along out of his window.

"It's… dark."

She giggled. "I would think so. I told you this was the darker kingdom!"

"…'Salways dark…" His voice dropped to a whisper.

She gave him a sideways glance. "It probably would help you see better if you took off your slick shades, Mr. Cool Guy," she sing-songed.

At that, he shrank back and let go of her hand. "No… I need these."

"You do not have to take them off if you do not want to. It was just a suggestion." Years with Becquerel had taught her how to notice others' moods by body language alone and cater her own to openly express any message, and she used her knowledge to approach him as nonthreateningly as she could. "Do you want to meet a friend instead?"

"There are… more profit…Prospit… psychics?"

"I told you, I am not psychic! And we are going to see someone else here on Derse with you!"

He considered her for a sleepy moment. "Sure… why not…"

Gracefully, she pirouetted in the air and ended her dance at his shoulder, giving him a nudge. "The moon princess is that way," she told him.

"How'm… I… s'posed to… know… that…"

"Do you want me to take you there?"

"Seeing as how…" he trailed off completely and Jade prodded him to attention, "…don't know where "over there" is… yes."

She wrapped her fingers around his hand again. "Okay, get ready because we are going to go really fast. Hold on to your shades!"

Jade wasn't joking about her speed- she brought them to Rose's window in no time and couldn't help but laugh at Dave when she noticed the white-knuckled vice-grip he'd applied to her hand. He was quite shaken- he didn't stop trembling even after he crashed into her as she stopped and planted them safely in Rose's room.

"Holy hell," he whispered

"I told you I was going to go fast!" she jokingly chided.

"Holy hell," he repeated, adrenaline fading. "Holy… freaking… hell."

It was then that she noticed that Dave had a very slight accent. She filed away that information for later. "The lovely Rose Lalonde is asleep in front of you! Be polite and say hello!"

With a heavy gait, Dave moseyed his way over to the girl on the bed, bringing Jade along with him.

"What do you think?" Jade asked after he had seen her face clearly.

"She… she looks… like a… flighty broad… and… snarker…"

Jade laughed. "She is very sarcastic, but she seems very nice, too! I think she is loving and brilliant and a perfect Sleeping Beauty moon princess!"

"Princess…" he started. "Ice queen…"

With a quick shake of her captured hand, Jade restored his focus. "I think I need to take you back, mister sleepyhead."

"Yeah… why… am I… so…?"

As if on cue, his knees bent and he sunk down before bracing himself on Rose's bed and Jade.

Jade tugged at him. "Let's go, Rip Van Coolkid." She put one arm around his waist and dragged him up into the air. "Nap time!"

"Nah, s'okay… I got it…" He stubbornly shrugged off her arm and instead led her back to his tower rather than the other way around.

At least, he tried to. He got about five feet past the window before Jade heard a loud snore and felt him become a deadweight clamped around her hand.

(Looking back on this after she got to know Dave better, she realized that he would've found this moment absolutely hysterical had he been in a position to observe- she splayed her legs in a midair squat and her face turned redder than the text she would come to associate her troublesome load with as she grunted with the effort of stopping his fall.

She looked constipated, no two ways about it.)

"Dave! Dave!"

He snored some more.

"So uncool!" She snorted and swung him like a pendulum into the closest edifice.

He struck it with a satisfying smack, like a baseball hitting a bat. "Unf! What the… ah, shit… ow…"

"DAVE!" She hauled him back up into the air (he was lighter when he was actively helping her) and noticed that he had miraculously avoided getting as much as a scratch on his precious eyewear. "No sleeping until you are safely in your bedroom!"

"…'M sorry… can't help it…" He was already drifting again.

Hastily, she looped her arms beneath his armpits and rocketed them back into his tower as fast as she could. It behooved her to keep him from reaching the ground until they were over his bed, so she let him hang limply from her arms even once they were inside.

"Well, Dave, it was really nice to meet you and as much fun as that was, I do not think I will be trying this again."

"O…kay…" he let her deposit him onto his bed and she gave his hand a quick squeeze before making the motion to leave.

"See you later!"

He tugged back. "Jade…"

"Yes?"

"'M… sorry… I can't go… anywhere."

She gave a soft smile and rubbed his fingers. "It's okay. I kind of know the feeling of falling asleep at bad times!"

"Hn."

"My dog Becquerel always looks out for me, kind of like I guess your Bro does, huh?"

"Bro isn't… he…" she couldn't tell if Dave was snoozing or if he wasn't sure what he wanted to say. "…Sometimes…"

Perhaps if she clarified herself, it would make it easier for him to understand in his semi-dreaming state. "I guess what I am saying is that you've got me to look out for you while you are here!"

He shifted his face to look at her and regarded her mutely for so long that anyone else would have thought he had started napping again. However, she knew he was still with her- she could see his pale eyelashes appear and disappear over the frames of his glasses every few seconds as he blinked.

"…Maybe…" the word drifted in the air like a signal for the others to come out because Dave soon dominated the conversation in his broken, unorganized uttering trance.

With some prompting and prodding, he told her about how being cool and ironic was paramount in the Strider household (what that meant, she wasn't sure, but she assured him he was "sooo cooool!" when he wasn't having odd narcoleptic attacks- sometimes even when he was- to which he gave a dry and ominously humorless laugh) and introduced her to the enigmatic Lil' Cal when he appeared in her lap (Dave was also unnaturally quick to grab him by the plush mitten and throw him onto the floor, considering his lethargic state). She also gathered that although he said adored his brother, something was strange about their relationship (not that she had much experience with familial relations with which to judge.)

The rest of the visit continued like this, with her piecing together key details of Dave's life from the dismembered thoughts he pushed to the surface.

"Hey," she said, after he had fallen silent for an unusual amount of time, "Dave, I need to go soon. I need to go to sleep, too, so I can wake up in the real world."

He didn't make any move to show he heard her, so she gently pried her fingers from his.

"Jade," he suddenly muttered.

"Yes?"

"Will… you… come… back…?"

She brightened. "Of course! I cannot promise how often that will happen, but I will, definitely!"

"…Okay…"

She had left him then, all optimism and smiles and _delight_ that she had gotten to really talk to one of her friends face-to-face and then spent several hours in the real world doggedly trying to find him using the power of the internet between frequent naps. Eager rummaging soon turned to frustration as her best efforts proved utterly fruitless. Finally, she typed his name into her browser as a last resort.

She felt incredibly silly when "The Blog of Dave Strider" popped up using such a simple search and pulled his chumhandle from the site with relative ease.

Her first real-world conversation with him, which she had just reread, proved to go even better than she had expected. However, it also went very _differently_.

What a guarded fellow he was! Sure, stalkers on the internet were dangerous, but there was no need for him to act so viciously! Of course, she couldn't deny that his raunchy jokes were unbelievably funny…

No, his rude daytime conversation hadn't left her disheartened in the slightest; it was very educational, in fact. She was now becoming attuned to the fact that the more waking Dave lied about something, the closer she was to the truth.

After all, her mention of his eye color was a complete shot in the dark. She had never asked him about it on Derse and he had never mentioned it, but the fact that he had not put her in the trollpen after she did so gave her the inexplicable conviction that she was right. Coolkid wasn't as much of a mystery as he pretended to be.

Still, she wondered how he would react in the waking world when she talked to him again after appearing in his dream room with a bouquet of roses and a lot of Scooby-Doo references. She grinned to herself as she curled up in her bed, anxiously awaiting her dreamtime's beginning.


	6. Chapter 6

_Hi, guys. Happy New Year! Here's a new chapter for you all and... honestly, I do not really care for the organization but I didn't want to start it off with the pesterlog because I just didn't... and because sometimes eats smileys and extra punctuation so Jade never comes out quite right (and my spellcheck/grammarcheck HATES that I refrain from capitalization, periods, apostrophes, commas... Pesterlogs are kind of painful because I have to recheck them and because refraining from typing it right in the FIRST PLACE is annoying!)_

_Also, this is an alternate timeline from the one that Homestuck takes place in because... ahahaha, I kind of have plans for this intro and dreamself interaction for later fic partlets- all Jave in this collection doesn't necessarily happen in the same time loop/cycle/narrative/whatever, but much like the source of the characters I am using, they are all at least loosely related. Ho ho!_

_Finally, thank you so much to all my readers and watchers thus far- y'all are great and your kind and generally positive responses are the reason that this fic gets priority over my other ones. Ha ha. I enjoy your comments and critiques and I sincerely appreciate every single one! Thank you for reading and reviewing and I hope I can count on you to pick this one apart... I'm certainly not totally happy with it and I'm not just talking about my intentional misuse of the colon but the flow in general (of course, it is also 2:00 AM here and I should be in bed! So who knows how it actually is?)_

_I do not own Homestuck!_

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><p><em>Yes- Dreamtime <em>(Part Two)

When he slept, Dave had visions of Cal dancing on his bed amongst the velvety red interior of his room, a room like a coffin of puppet plush to cocoon him in and block the sun out, and the little man's grave-dancing kept the boy flightless and scared, doomed to wallow in his hoard of personal treasures of secrets and desires but never share them; Dave had to fight to protect his psyche and to give in and give them all to his diminutive tormentor would be the end.

He spent his life huddled in the shadows of those who he believed to be greater. The darkness was what he thought to be a safe place.

However, it was also a very cold and lonely place although he did not realize it himself until she came along.

His whole world was darkness, and she cut through all of it in a glorious golden glow.

Yes, she was pure sunshine and he reacted to her like a monster born in a cave would if it caught a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel- disoriented, frightened, guarded, and yet so very…

…intrigued.

She would visit him sporadically and each time she did his crypt became less frightening because she graced it with her presence. The cruel shadows regressed into nothingness and it took almost no time for him to crawl out of his shell and, quite literally, into her arms.

In the state he dreamed in, he was only able to confidently stride about in his room for certain predestined actions, like his train of thought kept him on a defined track of motion. When he derailed himself, he discovered that he would fade fast and struggled to keep his head above the bubbles of an ocean of dreams. So, naturally, he clung to the only thing that he knew he could hold onto that he trusted to support him when he fell.

Jade was a great guiding star, a loyal and unfailing point of light that promised to return and guide him when he needed help most.

She was kind and welcoming- an eternal smile shone across her face unless he twisted it otherwise (which he tried his best not to do, and luckily he never managed to permanently disfigure the gleeful crescent playing across her face what with her strange sense of humor and forgiving attitude absorbing the brunt of his callousness) and according to her, she came to visit him simply because she liked him and thought he was _cool _and wanted them to be _friends_.

She said she didn't want anything else from him, really, and Dave believed her.

"Well," she said, "Maybe that's not all I want. I also want to introduce you to some others and I want you to be friends with them, too!"

"Are they… like…you?"

"Like me?"

"Dog…"

Confusion altered her face. "Yes, I have a dog, but I do not think the others do. But is that what you mean by 'like me'?"

"Dog… Star…"

"Daaaaaave," she rolled his head around in her hands, "are you still with me?"

"Yeah, I just… I meant… are they… kind and… excitable… trust 'em…" he mumbled a few more things she couldn't quite make out.

"Well, I think so! Rose is a little, um, thornily precocious at first, but she totally is kind at heart! And she is really smart. From what I know about your waking self, you guys would really like one another!"

"Saw Rose… she seemed like she pretended… ice queen…"

"She is not one, though. Trust me."

"…I do…" He succumbed to the pull of gravity on his tired body and let her catch him to illustrate his point.

Jade did not understand his hidden meaning as Dave proved to be cryptic even when he was being openly honest, but kept him from planting his face onto the floor of his room all the same.

"Hey, do you need to go to bed again?"

"No." He uprooted himself from her and took a seat at his desk. "Rose is a… tolerable broad… not a real queen… and… you were saying?"

"You guys have a lot in common! I think you would really hit it off because you are both so smart and sarcastic and kind of ironic!"

"If you… think so…"

"I do!"

"So… me and you… and… Rose… two girls and one… guy… ha…"

She let his unfinished joke go unnoticed. "No, two boys, too! I have not talked about him very much, but you forgot about John!"

Suddenly, Cal jumped onto the computer monitor and Dave stood up and walked over to his bed to get away from him.

"Your awake self must be moving that way as well if it is so easy for you to do that."

"Maybe," he replied. "And… if he… goes to sleep… I… might not… be so…"

Dave sat on his bed and tried to keep his head from drooping.

When he stopped talking, Jade stepped over and carefully laid him down onto his mattress and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "I'll try to come back again later. Your other self doesn't like to sleep much."

Dreaming Dave nodded in reply to what she said, but he didn't find it in himself to be able to elaborate much more. Maybe later, when he was more asleep on the other side and more awake on this one, he could tell her absolutely everything.

The single consciousness he possessed was stuck shifting between two dimensions and the strangest filter separated them. Here, he was not half as guarded as he was there.

His second internet conversation with Jade had been indicative of the difference, and he'd apologized to her for his attitude on several occasions both in person and online. He was not particularly proud of himself or his words that day:

-gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]-

GG: hey! so are you still going to pretend we do not know each other?

TG: wait what the fuck are you talking about

GG: still going to act sooooo cooool? hee hee!

TG: what the hell do you want

GG: you seemed to really like the flowers and you did a really funny scooby doo voice

TG: oh right

TG: youre that asshole

GG: that is not very nice, dave.

GG: it was hard to bring all that stuff all the way out there and you seemed to really like it at the time!

GG: you said you and your bro watched that show together sometimes before his puppet thingy show came on

GG: and then sometimes squiddles after that!

GG: and then you laughed when I told you how much I loved squiddles!

TG: so I guess you do forcefully invade peoples dreams like the tentacles on those goddamned squidbeasts do

TG: thanks for the mindfuck asshole but it was pretty pathetic not even worth my time

TG: so weak that I almost forgot all about it

TG: you are an even shittier rapist than i thought and you even had the upper hand

GG: dave, why do you act like this? i only want to be friendly!

TG: yeah well obviously you are a little too friendly and im not into your kind of thing

TG: fucking furry go yiff on someone else

TG: i said it once and ill say it again you are a creeper

TG: no worse

TG: and i never want to have the discomfort of you pawing all over me again

GG: but dave you said you wanted me to come back and visit you again!

GG: you said you would watch cartoons with me

GG: and you wanted me to hear your remixes and maybe play some instruments for parts of them

GG: you said it was nice to have someone over that would not be scared off by your brother and his odd hobbies!

GG: why are you acting like this?

TG: fuck you

GG: you pretend like you do not need other people but i can tell that you are really lonely!

TG: FUCK YOU

GG: why are you so rude and uncool when you are awake? i do not like what you are insinuating!

GG: it is disgusting and mean of you! :(

TG: and how the fuck do you think it feels for me to have you come pry at me like some damned overweight fat nasty trash does to a mediocre seafood salesman for a cheaper deal on some shit crab at an even shittier cheap ass seafood market at a crowded tourist trap hell

TG: where people stand in lines to ogle at the fucking crustaceans waiting to be boiled alive and then crammed down their motherfucking gullets

TG: those people soullessly stare like fucking puppets waiting with sadistic anticipation to break open the red crab shell in their damned dead mittens while the crab kind of just glubs there like

TG: it didnt really have a choice in its death but the alternative impending executioner was the ugly sharp serrated fan nestled in the center of a ring of molesting tentacles of some eight legged freaks with suckers to mark upon their crabby asses and make the pain last longer the whole way to oblivion in the piehole

TG: meaning said piehole-fan belonged to some octopus or horrorterror or squid or squiddle or whatever the fuck

TG: and the crab is the shit that hits it once again illustrating that the seafood in the tourist trap of grim reaper tourist is really fucking awful shit unironically

TG: meaning the crab is shit that lived a shit life and just waits there to be ripped from its home and tossed into serious hot water or shoved up the ass mouth of abominations nobody should ever have to even fucking dream about in hell

TG: and this is its fate no matter what the fuck the crab wants or wanted

TG: and it and all its little crab buddies just curl up and die knowing that

TG: no matter if they could turn back time or something they would all live fucking pointless lives and just be torn apart exposed and ripped to goddamned pieces in the disgusting mouths of something bigger than any of them once it was finished jacking off to watching them fight for their lives in terror in the little aquarium-universe

TG: they wouldnt even be able to help the damn appetizer of i dunno frog legs or something

TG: not to mention the side dishes or course afterwards

TG: shit they wouldnt even get to see the sweet dessert reward awaiting after all that fucking godawful dinner adventure of putrid seafood ended

TG: it would all get gnoshed to bits and sludge itself down with the rest of the crab and frog rancid shit

TG: unless they scraped it off the table

TG: then the dog might have mercy on it and leave it to rot in its filth

TG: fuck i dont even know what the metaphor or its purpose was anymore

TG: just

TG: god

GG: …

TG: oh did that get you to shut up

TG: huh

TG: yeah we see how well you handle that shit

TG: its not like I wasnt going to burn you eventually

TG: that was nothing

TG: its fine just go

TG: so run asshole

TG: run on home with Dorothy like the bitch you are yip yip

TG: leave me alone to chill with my insanely fucking awesome self

TG: with goddamned cal

GG: …

TG: oh are we all quiet now

TG: trying to be the bigger person now after the backlash from your meddling

TG: nah dont lie you dont know what to say back to that and youre just trying to cover your lame ass by looking all strong and silent

GG: …dave… did something happen?

TG: yeah i just flambeed your ass

GG: i think you need to go chill out, mister cool guy. i think your cool temporarily became uncool from all that sick burning you just did…

TG: whatever

GG: i am really upset that you would act like this!

TG: i dont have time for this bullshit

GG: you are so nice when we meet in person!

TG: WE HAVE NEVER MET

GG: stop lying!

TG: fine lets pretend like my weird dream wasnt just a coincidence come over and show me your sad hurt puppydog eyes and maybe ill change my mind

GG: you think you are being clever and aloof but you are just being cruel and cold!

GG: not cool at all

GG: i am starting to wonder if i was wrong about you after all…

TG: look im not your little toy and i dont like you or anyone else playing retarded games with me

GG: im sorry you think my games are retarded I just wanted for us all to have fun!

GG: if you are going to treat me like this then i do not think i want you to play either! :(

TG: glad to see we have some kind of agreement here

GG: i guess im just not cool enough to have such a jerk grace me with his mean insults and repulsive figures of speech or his two faced asshole routine!

GG: im sorry i ever took a moment of your precious time! :(((

GG: goodbye!

-gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG]-

TG: goddammit

TG: look im sorry i just

TG: fuck

TG: I feel really crabby today okay

TG: what i mean is im an asshole okay

TG: i have issues with people getting close alright is that such a crime

TG: youd feel the same way if i suddenly appeared to you from nowhere and started to act like I knew everything about you and

TG: fuck what am I saying

TG: im going to bed

-turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG]-

-gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]-

GG: if you really mean that, apology accepted! See you soon! :)))))

-gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG]-

Luckily for Dave and his dreamself, he went to sleep and Jade visited him straightaway.

She found him on his clumsy feet and waiting at the window with his shoes gripping the vinyl surface of his turntables like they were nothing more than the cheap plastic of a life raft. "…'M so sorry."

"I think I understand why you acted that way. I should apologize, too. It's just that John and Rose were so much easier to talk to about this on a more personal basis and I… I guess I never realized how intrusive I was being."

"No, I was… being a… fuckass…. 'smy fault…"

Gently, she peeled him from the turntables and guided him back to his bed. "I guess it is kind of both our faults. But now that we have that cleared up, we can just treat it like a bad dream and forget all about it."

"No…!"

Naively, Jade blinked and cocked her head. "No?"

Dave's self in Texas had indeed taken a small nap and the moon prince was a little more energized than usual. He lifted his feet from the ground and glided around Jade, putting his hands upon her shoulders so he could turn her around as he twirled around her. "Can't forget the lessons from this. One… I think… I believe in you when I am… not… here, two… we need to teach you how… to comport yourself on the web so you… don't get trolled or… end up on 4chan or something… and… three… I am abrasive… all… the time."

"But you are usually too cool to be an asshole like this! Today was an off day!"

"Coolness… has nothing to do with being an ass… or a component of one."

Jade giggled at that and Dave gave a tiny smile.

"We… can't just treat memories like… dreams. Then… how… would we know if we were dreaming or not?" He spread his palms out wide in a nonchalant gesture and grounded himself. "And how would I remember that I believe you exist and are a real person who really… visits me in dreams and brings me chrysanthemums and… shit… and who… well, you get the picture..."

Her smile lit up her face and she grabbed his hand. "I forgive you. But I do want to know," her face creased in worry again, "Were you okay? Your, um, metaphors were a little ominous."

Dave's face remained stone, which was the first sign that he was retreating into himself. "Nothing has happened… exactly, but… this place is… that puppet… sometimes I hear things and…" He looked to his feet.

"I do not really hear things, but I see them! So I sort of know what you mean! That is how I knew about you!"

Wonderingly, Dave cast his face up to hers again. "…Prospit…? That place… is a land of golden dreams… this one is made of…" He shook his head. "I don't want… to think about that right now. But… I never heard about you before."

Jade took a turn making revolutions around Dave's stationary body. "Maybe it is because you are sooooo sleepy!"

"…Maybe."

She messed with his hair some and floated back to the window she came in. "I need to wake up soon, so I should go. I am sorry this visit was so brief, but I am glad that I came!"

Behind his glasses, Dave's eyes widened "W-wait… can… you stay long enough for… some… beats?" He wandered over to the equipment below his feet. "I… might… forget or fall asleep…? Yeah, fall asleep… later."

Jade succumbed to the temptation of sleeping in and let Dave play his music to discover that he was making his moods obvious to her by what he played or remixed- he could really do this in his sleep.

"'M not gonna… remember all of this… clearly… in the other world…"

"But you will here and so I'll stay a little longer, okay?"

"…'Kay…"

But like all good things, her visit came to an end and the glow of her golden nightgown slipped out of Dave's sight like the constellations do from the night sky as the seasons change. He was left in the darkness once again with her far away and offering only as much comfort as the promise of her return could offer.

He would have to wait it out and he decided that so long as it was her he was waiting for, the girl who was unperturbed by his closed personality, the girl who saw through his most foolishly callous defenses, the girl who could forgive him for mistakes he could not forgive himself for, that was alright.

He grabbed some paint and began to draw on the walls with an uncharacteristic giddyness even though he knew she was far away like a star in the night sky.

After all_, just how high do you even have to be...?_


	7. Chapter 7

_Here- a barely edited chapter for your enjoyment! This'll probably be the last one of dreamself Dave and Jade ("WHAT? BUT WHAT ABOUT PROSPIT SHENANIGANS?") because this is the part where Dave sees min-AU-type-things and alternate realities so I can kind of have fun with the canon. I am already messing with how Dave's (mostly) subconscious acts in the face/tentacles of Horrorterrors that have kind of been implied to invade Dave's head ESPECIALLY when he is shadeless (also Cal), but it might also be a good thing to keep in mind that Dave and Jade are about ten, maybe eleven, in this and the prior two parts- this is waaaaay before the events of Homestuck. Children are children, after all, and they do get scared._

_Also this is fanfiction of Homestuck (Homestuck being a webcomic I do not own.) And anything can happen in fanfiction._

_Thank you thank you thank you to all my wonderful readers, reviewers, and watchers! I would not do this stuff without you. You guys keep me focused on this rather than other fanfics through your attentiveness. I love to hear from you- Constructive criticism, reviews, requests, questions, anything you've got (except perhaps off-topic and dishonest things, y'know.) Please keep telling me how I'm doing on my maiden shipping fic voyage! It helps and it's very nice to know!_

_Oh, also, the next piece will probably be dark to contrast with this near-sickening amount of fluff. :)_

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><p><em>Yes- Dreamtime (Part 3)<em>

Dave did not like the dark period between Jade's visits and he hated even more when he was so out of it when she came around that he could barely sit up.

Jade knew that not only because it was clear as day through his body language, but because he had told her as much in words.

So she talked to him anyway on those days and he would usually signify his marginal attention by holding her hand and squeezing it to reply when he couldn't get words to eke out his lips. And whenever possible, she would prop him up and rest next to him on the bed while she recounted stories of her grandfather or of Prospit. He seemed especially interested in those.

"World of… fucking gold," he would utter.

"Yes! And I am its princess!" Jade would say.

"…..suits you."

"Rose is a princess, too!"

"…..hn…"

Usually, Jade would change topics at this point (the line about her being royalty was almost an inside joke by now as he'd always say the same thing about it after a varying amount of silence, then finished up by a Rose comment), but today Jade felt like pursuing the subject.

"But Dave, she is _your_ princess!"

He gripped her hand lightly until he could make a noise. "…but then… your prince… why… who…. I don't…"

"You have talked to both of them, right? Rose and John?"

"Therapist…. and… best bro… Glad to…. know…. John….Derpass…" Jade watched with some pleasure as Dave's lips tilted up into a small smile."

"John is really wonderful. He's so nice and completely genuine! I really like him!"

"….mmhm…. bad taste…"

"But you just said you liked John!"

"…Do. But he… has… bad… taste in… movies…."

"I do not know about that, but if you say so."

"…Terrible taste… great… guy…" His pause grew thoughtful. "…. Perfect…" he chuckled a little.

"Yeah," her eyes got misty and she looked off into the distance, "I am really glad he is my prince. It _is_ almost too perfect, you know? He and I are so alike and you and Rose are both so similar... it is almost like we were made to be together!"

Suddenly, Dave's hand squeezed hers and he shifted with a drowsy whine and a contortion of shaded face.

The startled Jade was unsure of whether to attribute this to Dave's occasional restless sleep pattern or if there was something he wanted to say. "It is okay, Dave. I am right here."

"….!" He buried his head into her shoulder.

"What is it?"

"Don't… belong to… damned…" he slid a little from his Jade perch and she supported him with her free arm. "…false… ice… queen…"

"I do not understand what you mean! Are you trying to talk to me or other-world people?"

His soft breathing became ragged and uneven, jagged like the broken edges of a shattered sheet of vinyl. "My queen…cold… highest tower… will… thaw… into a dew…" he let go of her other hand and she used it to embrace him, "fucking frog… prince… feathery…asshole… sera…phim… devilbeast…sunshine… save… time… and… space and…" she held him tighter.

He kept spouting nonsense, at first raising his voice to a flat shout and then suddenly letting it recede to a gritty whisper like the crackling pops of a bonfire as it tore at the stars and fell out only to reach for them again. "Shush, it'll be okay. I think you are just having a nightmare!"

Feebly, he placed his arms around her and let his head rest under her chin. "Knight for… red… Rose… black… Rose…"

"Dave, you are not making any sense! It is okay if you need to sleep. Please do not push yourself!" She looked down at him with dark clouds of concern washing over her earlier Prospit daydreams.

"Serve others sometimes… master is… and… Felt… but…loyal only… to… loyal…"

Slowly, deliberately, he shifted away from her so that his downcast face was a few inches away from her body. She noticed that his shades were slipping off.

"….Green Sun…."

The plastic frames of the sunglasses finally relinquished their hold on Dave's head and they fell to the bed, sinking into the plush blankets as if they were made of the world's heaviest metal.

The armored protection they offered had, in fact, been completely moot. Dave's eyes had been visible from over their unsecured tops since he had begun to support himself in his stupor.

Their redness would not have been half as intimidating had his stare not been quite so concentrated; he was not so much looking _at_ her once the glasses fell as he was _through_ her- she wondered, with a sick curiosity, if the dark lenses had been keeping something _out _rather than simply keeping his secrets in_. _As he tilted his head level with hers, that ominous silhouette of a theory began to fill out into something all too real.

She followed the path of his widened eyes- tired eyes, with bags underneath them dyed an unhealthy purpled blue- as his irises darted to the left and then cautiously to the right before retreating to the left again in a growing frenzy of panic.

"Dave?" Jade tried.

He flinched at the sound of his name and swung his eyeballs to view dead center. As he did, Jade swore she heard creaking noises emit from of the inner muscles of his face from the strain of refocusing his impossibly wide eyes to see her instead of whatever else lurked in the shadows.

"Dave?" she repeated. He was awake, if his expression was any indication- he looked like he'd been wired with shot after shot of espresso and he acted like it, too. His fists were quaking from where they held the cloth of her nightgown and his breathing was even more erratic than before.

First, his mouth twisted into a downwards curve and then his lips stretched wider to contort into a strange hybrid of a sneer and a deep frown before they parted and let lose his subconscious thoughts.

This time, the disjointed words did not flow like slow molasses, but rushed and stumbled over one another in a panic to get out. "I-I'm sorry, I can't, I can't do this, fuck, I can't deal with this, I am not okay with this-" He squeezed his eyes shut tight and shook his head as if casting away unwanted thoughts could be done physically.

Jade clamped her cool hands on his face and held it still. "Calm down, Dave! It is going to be okay! Nothing is going to get you. Hold on just a second!"

Startled, his eyes flew open and he searched her face for a moment before his struggling ceased.

She released him and snatched up his sunglasses from where they rested on the bed and gently placed them back on his face. "Better?"

His breathing had already begun to stabilize and he gave a quick nod. "…Thank you."

"No problem." Her warmest smile appeared on her visage and she rubbed his sides as if she were petting a dog- that was the most natural reaction she could think to give in this situation. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He let his forehead fall onto her shoulder. "…No."

"Okay." She hugged him, but it was more of a brace to make sure he didn't doze off and fall once his shoulders stopped shaking. The rhythmic stroking of his back was for reassurance. "Sometimes, the things I see in the clouds scare me. But then I remember that they are just visions and I can look at a different cloud or talk to the citizens of Prospit. I cannot do that when bad things happen in the waking world."

"…You can talk to me…"

"Oh, I do sometimes! But it is harder when nobody is actually sitting there with you. My house is creepy."

"I mean, Bec is really helpful, almost like my father, if I had one! Except no matter how much I love him or he loves me, he is only a dog. And some of the things my grandfather keeps around frighten me. I know they cannot come to get me, but… he has this collection of weird blue women from really bad ads or something." She leaned into his ear. "I think they're trying to turn _me_ blue with their stares. Their eyes are like the ones in your comic, except not as ironic or cool."

He gave a faint laugh. "Blue would look nice… on you."

"You think so?"

"Yup."

"That is what John says! Maybe I should try it."

"…Ah."

She giggled and patted his back like a drum to amuse herself. "Do you think he would hear me if I told his dreamself that I was wearing blue?"

Dave didn't respond.

"I guess I could just tell him online. But that seems so impersonal. Although I guess living in a really high tower all by myself should make me used to that kind of thing."

"…I'm sure he'll be very touched that you told him… even if he can't see you."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah. But red's a better color. Though… I kinda like yellow."

Jade chuckled. "Silly Dave. You've only seen me in yellow!"

"Exactly."

Something was strange about how he was speaking. "Dave."

She scrunched her face into a fake frown. "You are completely awake right now, aren't you! You are just pretending to be a sack of potatoes!"

He stayed still, like a gazelle when it realizes a lion has it in its sights.

Then, unexpectedly, his head sprang up from the savanna of the fabric of her dress and a barely concealed grin transferred from his face to his voice. "Potatoes! What the hell. I am way to cool for that kind of lump of unfrenched fries."

"Okay, then what kind of vegetable could possibly dare to… _aspire..agus_ to coolness like yours?"

"Jesus, Jade, that rules out asparagus for sure. There will be none of that in this vegetable tray of irony." He began to levitate from the bed and tug at her to do the same.

"Are you served with cool ranch dressing?" She followed him into the air.

"No, no, I am none of your derpy vegetables just lying around like a bump on a fucking log. I'm the ranch. It's me. I make all your shitty produce halfway decent." He spread out his arms and planted his palms on the back of his blonde head.

Jade happily played along with the ruse. "So that's why my pumpkins keep disappearing! You keep slathering them in your coolkid dressing and people keep gobbling them up! I myself might be the one eating all of them right now in my sleep because I can't get enough! Your ranch is just soooo gooood!"

Dave choked on air. "Oh my God, Jade, I know I'm irresistible and everything but damn, girl, you don't have to talk like that, I mean, I was joking-"

Snickering, Jade swatted him in the arm not only in playfulness but to chase away the unpleased look that had formed behind his glasses. "Gross! Not like that!"

"Well, whatever. Do you want to go look at Derse? Get the fuck out of this tower?" Dave held out his hand for her to take.

Her uneven smile slipped from her face and she tucked a few strands of loose ebony hair behind her porcelain ears. "I really want to, but I think I am going to wake up soon and I need to leave this body on my bed."

Dave's upturned lips slid back to their standard position, too. "…Oh. Some other time, then."

"Yeah, sorry. I just have this dream-robot thingy and it needs to be somewhere I can find it easily, and, um…"

"…I understand." He drew his hand back to his side.

However, Jade wasn't done thinking. With a toss of her hair and arms, her body language lit up the mood like a light bulb in a mine shaft. "But you can come with me, if you want! We can go to Prospit!"

"Really, now?"

"If you think you can make it without dozing off!" She shoved her finger into his chest. "Are you up for it?"

Surreptitiously, Dave cast a wary eye to where Lil' Cal was cackling in the corner before he navigated to the window. "This party is just getting started. Why the fuck would I sleep through all the crazy dance remixes and salty snacks and weird, drunken hookups happening in the closet? It's my scene."

Jade snorted.

"Alright, maybe that isn't my scene. But the point is that I sure as shit want to go to visit the bigass El Dorado bling-moon in the sky. The man in that moon has fucking grills on his made-of-gold-not-cheese teeth- he's my kind of homie. Lead the way."

Elatedly, she dashed out the window and pulled him along on her way. "Ha ha! It is a loooong way, but it is worth it! I promise!" Dave got his bearings and caught up to her speed so that they were flying side-by-side rather than her leading and dragging him by the wrist. She adjusted her grip so she was holding his hand instead.

"Sorry, but cutting off the circulation to my whole hand is worse than just my fingers. You gotta ease up a little bit there," he commented.

"Oh, sorry, Dave! I'm just so excited!" He listened to her ecstatic voice as it whizzed by like bright dust from a falling star as they flew through the dark sky and wondered if she was completely unaware of the fragmented reality- _realities_- of time that would or will or had or might or never would come to pass that he heard whispers of in the very same darkness. He opened his mouth to mention it.

Instead, though, he adjusted his shades with his free hand and kept those timelines a secret for another day. Here, now, he was going to Prospit with Jade and all the other possibilities could hold their horses.

John and Rose were not there yet. It was only him and Jade and he was pretty okay with that right now.

* * *

><p>Thanks again for reading! Oh, and also...<p>

SHAMELESS SELF PLUG-

_WANT MORE DAVE/JADE ABSURDITY? ADD THE DOT AND TAKE OUT THE SPACES: youtube *dot* com /watch?v=lG6ZfpmLcv8 (let me voice your stuff if you have anything! :D I like to act, too!) _


	8. Chapter 8

_Hey, guys- it's been awhile. I spent kind of a long time on this annnnd honestly I do not care for it but I spent so much time on it that I figured, heck, let's post it! This is suppossed to be one of the many "timelines" Dave sees as he and Jade are going to Prospit (a la last chapter) and if I continue with this little story hee-yuh it will not only be a multi-parter of alove triangle betwixt Dave the boy, Dave the Sprite, and Jade the doggod, but it'll tie back into DreamDave and his sleepy, sleepy adventures on Prospit with DreamJade because, well, this is Homestuck and I'd like to write about layered realities and I actually do have a plot outline._

_In fact, part of the problem I'm having with this chapter is that I'm explaining the subtle differences between this and the actual Homestuck canon events and it's tedious. So if you hate it, love it, or can see a way I can improve, tell me! I want to be able to write things with plot (and also gore *HINT*) but I'd like to keep some readers, y'know, interested as I do this because feedback is GOOD and helpful. Thank you in advance and don't forget to read and review!_

**EDITED FOR COHERENCY. Feel free to nitpick my typos!**

* * *

><p><em>Yes- HomeworldThe Ladder (Arguably the lyrics of every Yes song outlined part of Homestuck's plot. I kid you not!)_

The white was the light against the black that she had a knack for- she slid her hand over her eyes to shield her face from the supernova reflecting off the ebony waters before it blinded her.

Rose Lalonde stood by her image mirrored in the glassy water and adjusted her eyes to the dawning intensity of the sudden sunrise. She knew very well that this particular day was significant- this was the very first dawn they'd found themselves in since the Scratch and if her role as a Seer of Light told her anything, it was that new beginnings (especially those involving her aspect) were something that needed to be monitored carefully. After all, they set the pace for whatever came after.

Beginnings were, quite literally, what determined the "luck of the draw" until the finale and free will, while important, was nothing more than the ability to choose which beginnings to pursue. After The Choice, fortune decided all.

And as a Seer knows there are many beginnings to infinitely many paths of fate along the road of life- one sunrise in any other context would not be such a monumental sight in the eyes of a reader of luck, beautiful as they are, but this beginning came from The End and that made it all the more unique.

She didn't know how, but she knew that this particular dawn- this particular moment- was going to reveal to her a glimpse of the fortunes of someone- of herself, her friends, or of the newest Bilious Slick, Rose did not know- close to her and she felt obligated to bear witness, analyze, and read the omens like tea leaves swimming in the vast, clouded sea of her mind's eye.

Still, the cool early morning winds chilled her bones and she didn't appreciate being awoken from her naps by visual cues from her sight beyond sight. She grumpily puzzled over what to do until the powers inside of her compelled her to once again dare to behold the white light on the black water.

Her own shadow loomed over onto the deep pool and she followed the straight black line her figure cast across the silvery expanse with her eyes until she reached the shore on the other side.

Indeed, this new universe replica was a strange place; Jade had been primarily responsible for the birth of the new froggod and so it made sense that the first place they would arrive looked like the island she was raised on, but the flora was huge and tropical while the fauna definitely was not.

A nondescript wolf sat on the other side of the water nonchalantly; it had either not yet noticed Rose or felt unthreatened by her as it didn't even give her a glance. It stoically kept its eyes glued to the sky above it.

From across the waters, Rose took in the strange creature with a sad smirk. The thing was so pale that it looked almost white beneath the penetrating sun- not even its facial features were outstanding. Anyone else would blame the phenomenon on Jade's lack of imagination, but Rose knew better.

Jade did not lack imagination ever. She simply missed Becquerel and this shade of an animal was a subconscious gesture to his memory.

Again, Rose braved the brightness but this time sent her eyes to the sky, following those of the Bec-wolf.

She needn't have, though, because no sooner had she angled her head did a single black bird descend to the pristine wolf-beast's feet.

How cliché, she thought to herself, that Dave would have a crow represent him. The only relation she could recall him having with a crow applied to his sprite, and that had just been coincidence. Jade's white wolf at least had true sentimental value.

(Rose was a Seer and she could see things that _are_ and _might be_, but she was blind to things that _were_ or _would have been_. The luck that mattered glimmered before her like a yellow brick road unfurled at her feet with its many divulging paths, and yet it was still a one-way road; once a path was decided upon, there was no turning back.

She had achieved godtier by Jack Noir's hands after she had been so foolishly played by her dear Noble Horrorterrors- she had the choice to seek Noir out but instead chose to meditate atop her quest bed, wrathfully pondering the outcome of using her brother's ability to traverse through time and stop her from daring to convene with the lords of dark mythos. Her reality was one of many, she reasoned, and so wondered how different an existence created from another set of her choices could possibly be. For example, if she chose to face Jack now in her rage, would she miraculously be able to take him down within a shroud of grimdarkness or would she fail?

At the time, she had been unable to read her fortune and did not know that such a choice, a reaction of anger and folly, would have had the same terminal result as the one she had made in this present reality- Bec Noir, the damned demon, appeared and thrust his sword through her in a flash of murderous thunder. She had watched in a detached stupor as the fates revealed themselves to her and she ascended along with the odds of her party's success, leading her to forget any forks in the road she had passed until this moment; Rose was a god now and she believed that she had made the correct choices to reach a bright future. The alternatives from _then_ didn't matter _now_.

_That_ was what she had beheld in her mind's eye to be the true path and therefore she had not and still did not remember that, in a session gone differently- neither wrong nor right, as such labels are subjective- Dave became both a bird and a boy _because_ he had seen, with eyes lost in blackness and bathed in green light all at once, his fate cast before him from the dark eyes of the same kind of carrion crow that she was criticizing for, ironically, the lack of artistic vision and deeper meaning.

The crow had been more than a simple coincidence.

Her dreams, his dreams, and memories of days before SBURB blurred together and left holes in her field of vision much like too much light washes out film; the overexposure removed key details from the big picture.

Rose, with all the luck she had the good fortune to foretell, was _blind_ to the fact that Dave had, in the event of any reality resulting in the delivery of the Tumor, known about his demise at the hands of Bec Noir and his following suicide at the green sun. Instead she blamed his destiny on the poor cards the game had dealt him. Dave, who acted as his own harbinger of death in black feathers, could see more than she could and, for once, understand more than she could hope to learn.

Indeed, Rose Lalonde was blind to the fact that luck did not actually matter.)

She watched the crow hop around the paws of the wolf and release a coarse, piercing caw before taking off and resettling on the canine's head. The lupine playfully shook itself and sent the bird plummeting to the ground.

Squawking in tandem with Rose's laughter, the crow ruffled its feathers and flew away.

The white wolf waited for a little while after the ebony visitor departed. Nonchalantly, it traded a few messages with the bird hovering above it before it stood up and padded into the inland jungle.

* * *

><p>Unfortunately, the sunrise did not hold the same allure to every Seer as it did to Rose.<p>

Terezi Pyrope, for one, did not see the appeal of contingencies within beginnings. In fact, she did not hear, feel, taste, or smell the allure of Lady Luck whatsoever, either. No, it was the blind mistress of Justice that enchanted her and Terezi comforted herself in the self-gratifying belief that choices resulted from the independent desires of the wayward vagabond on the road of life. Yes, the illusion of that thing called luck scattered about could entice the foolish down certain roads, but the swift hand of Justice would ultimately guide them to their destination, be it one of penitent suffering or righteous reward.

In fact, the sunlight was intolerable.

Her slumber through the dawn was more than a Troll's escape from the day; it was a much-deserved respite from the sights of the many possibilities that plagued her blank eyes daily and she cuddled her stuffed dragons to block out the piercing light.

There was no doubt that Terezi had a variety of unorthodox quirks devoted to unsettling bystanders. She poked, prodded, licked, interrogated, and judged her way into the lives and hearts of others, whether as a poisonous thorn or a benevolent (if pushy) protector, but her most unusual attribute was her affinity for playtime. Specifically, playing judge.

It was unsettling how she enjoyed sentencing her dear scalemates to their deaths.

She knew her games were odd, but she (smilingly) insisted that they _must_ be enacted. Lemonsnout was a liar and coward, the green one was sinfully envious and the scarlet one, while a beautiful color, was known for crimes of wrathful passion. The mustard-brown one had conned many a scalemate with its duplicity and the chocolate one was too weak-willed to abstain from being an accomplice to unlawful behavior. The royal blue plush was known to ravish unwilling parties and the darker navy dragon was a thief. They were quite a motley crew and try as she might, Terezi could never tame them before the repercussions of their unjust actions caught up with them.

And so the games must begin.

It was a pity, really, that the only scalemate she could really believe in was the pristine Pyralsprite.

Because she was blind, Terezi did not judge based on appearances- they were, as the cliché says, deceiving. No, there was always an underlying motive, meaning, _depth _hidden beneath the surface that she, as a legislacerator, was obligated to uncover. Absolutely nothing was as simple as it looked and absolutely nobody was as good as they tried to be and that was the truth.

Except Pyralsprite. The little dragon was as unblemished as its soft white casing and the only breaks from its guiltless hide were its eyes- Pyralsprite had these perfect scarlet eyes that bore into a bystander and sought out the sin therein. To look into Pyralsprite's eyes was to have your whole soul reflected back at you in a burning vortex created as a reward for your terrible deeds and depraved heart.

And somehow, Terezi was able to see (although not really see, as, again, she was _quite_ blind) through the fire and flames to see that Pyralsprite, like her lusus, held the power that Terezi wanted, had the wisdom Terezi wanted, and saw more than Terezi ever could even since before her eyes were fried by Surya's lurid glare.

(She'd never say this, but Terezi Pyrope, while attuned to just about every possibility of fate, was blind to the fact that Pyralsprite reflected all the things she valued in this world. Her lusus was her parent and Pyralsprite a strange amalgamation of a protector and partner and dear child rolled into one adorable plush toy. She projected onto it all the qualities she liked about herself and all the other scalemates be damned- she hanged green envy, yellow-bellied cowardice, and sin red because they were guilty of imperfection and always would be.

She enjoyed their "just" killings because it was good riddance!

Once, she had thought she felt that way because they were just bits of fluff, much like she thought other trolls were other worthless strangers for her manipulation and amusement. Now she knew, in her heart of hearts, that these lynching sprees sprang from a futile effort to eradicate her shortcomings through ritualistic means. And it wasn't just for her- she choked the life out of the imperfections of her friends through her cuddly companions, too.

After all, if she believed in her mind that representational death sentences could squelch out the evils of the spirit, then surely her ruthless playtime did just that.

This was how she justified her most difficult actions- she goaded herself into believing in a reality where the decisions to protect her friends, no matter how ambiguous those choices were in actuality, were always righteous.

Threatening to kill John as retribution for Tavros' death had not been wrong because it distracted Vriska from pursuing Jack Noir until The Mirthful Messiahs had made a grand entrance on the roof. It hadn't mattered that Terezi had been lying about doing the Heir harm or that such an act would have been unjust in and of itself- it was for the greater good. It was also was not wrong of Terezi to allow Gamzee to utterly defeat her spidery friend before allowing Karkat to intervene. She reasoned that had Vriska not been on the other end of Zillyhoo, she'd have never realized that her godtiered self could not even take care of a raging clown let alone the blackest jester. Vriska might've lost her arm again, but the grim alternatives Terezi had beheld in her mind's eye did not come to pass.

Everything was as it should be. She had convinced herself of this, therefore it was so.

Terezi did not believe in grey area. There was black and there was white and nothing more. Wrong and right were the only choices and they, like destiny, weren't defined by luck or chance but by one's own hand and deluding yourself into claiming neutral is cowardly and stupid. Legislacerators are meant to abhor and sniff out such lies.

Grey is a cheap casing over the body. It's an illusion created by the weak mind trying to justify itself, she'd say.

But be that as it may, Terezi couldn't-and _can't_- see into her own mind as clearly and objectively as she believes. Good and evil may be two sides of the same coin but the reality was- and is- that she couldn't tell which damn side is up or down and even if she could, it wouldn't matter because the whole coin is _one solid metallic grey_.

Her faith in her own justice- her belief that your reality was all in your head and that there is, infallibly, only right and wrong- could get her far, but at the end of the day Terezi's morality was just like her Pyralsprite- a sweet, little,

white

_lie.)_

Still slumbering, she drew her most trusted dragon companion closer and gave him a good sniff. Lovely, as always- he smelled like fresh snow and sugar and clean laundry and… something else. As she put her nose closer to its eyes, a pinky-cotton-candy smell wafted and she dreamed, for a moment, of the pale flesh of a newborn human child. Had she been a more lucid dreamer, she'd have shaken him from her dreams, but the image stuck and Terezi puzzled as to why, when the infant in her mind turned around, the bright ruby eyes staring back at her seemed so familiar.

She'd beheld this child before through whatever sensory abilities she still had, but she couldn't quite place how he related to her Pyralsprite.

Or perhaps she did and just didn't want to acknowledge it.

Regardless, the sun's piercing rays popped her dreambubble and she scurried deeper into the little island cave she and her compatriots had settled in for the day. Nimbly, she stepped over John's splayed legs and cackled quietly to herself when she discovered that the Heir held one of Dave's legs captive like a teddy bear (or Pyralsprite) and the other was underneath his lower back while Dave's torso was contorted so that his head was neatly wedged in his windy friend's armpit (how they got into that position, she'd never know.)

His contorted placement looked incredibly uncomfortable and Terezi figured that was why Dave was awake and watching her through his shades. "Don't think that just because John's got me down I'm gonna let you take advantage of me and remove my dignity."

"Coolkid, I think Mr. Windypants has done that already. There's not much left for a poor blind girl like me to take."

Dave smiled a little, but it was barely noticeable. "Nah. He's my bro and this is what we do. In fact, this is actually how I gain my dignity. By being a body pillow. Literally," He grunted and flailed his free arm in the air as John smashed his face deeper in his armpit, "and ironically," he gasped out when he wiggled his face out of his friend.

"This human emotion called friendship sure is weird," Terezi muttered, slightly disappointed that Dave's glasses were still securely on his face.

"Why the hell do you trolls keep calling it an emotion? There are emotions involved and stuff but friendship is more like just a "thing" than an emotion in and of itself."

"Well, it's still just weird." She adjusted the plush in her arms and sniffed around. "But where's Rose?" She hadn't noticed the girl had gone until now.

"She left a few minutes ago, but I'm sure she's fine. It's some shit to do with the sunrise, like, Seer of Light business. I assume it's exclusive to the Seer because otherwise Spiderbitch," he spat the name out with a hiss, "would be out there too. And then I'd be out there making sure she didn't try anything funny."

Dave had actually not had contact with another human since his ascension to godhood and it was no real wonder that he was so suspicious of all the trolls' actions towards his friends, especially now that he really _knew_ them. Sure, he was fine with Terezi, Kanaya, and (amazingly) Karkat, but Gamzee and Vriska were much trickier- Dave learned quickly that Gamzee, while normally mellow, had some "totally fucked up obsessive" feelings for Dave and Tavros' severed head (this had actually been a surprise to everyone, as far as Dave's inclusion went, and whatever transpired afterwards was one of the other mysterious key things that created the bridge over the impasse of mutual douchebaggery of Strider and Vantas.)

But the tension between Dave and Vriska wasn't just awkward- it was almost _palpable._

Terezi was not entirely sure why. If she had to hazard a guess, it had something to do with _everything_, but most notably the very boy holding the Knight of Time captive at the moment. She'd gathered that Rose factored into it, too, but Dave was very secretive about anything surrounding his dislike of Vriska (besides the fact that Terezi had complained about her so much in the medium. Terezi could never live that one down.) But the skilled eyes of the Seer of Mind saw right through that excuse and Terezi had been a little hurt by his distrust of her.

When she had confronted him, his reasoning for skimming the issue had been very solid and even she couldn't justify an argument against it: "Even though you bitch about her all the time," he'd told her, "it's pretty damn obvious that you are still her friend or kismesister (she would interrupt and protest at that) or whatever the hell you call it and you might be inclined to let something slip and I can't risk that."

He'd had a similar talk with Kanaya and Karkat, apparently (which had pissed Karkat "the hell off, where does that asshole find the nerve to shut us out? Is he being all racist because we are trolls? Is that why he won't fucking talk to us? What a fucking poser douchebag hypocrite! We should kick him off this spaceship-meteor-disk thing for being a prick" until around the time Karkat's eyes began to change color- then both of them disappeared for a long time and when they came back, Karkat was unusually polite to Dave) but eventually most of their aggressive talk was just that- talk. The dynamic reminded Terezi a little of how Sollux and Karkat used to act and as glad as she was for that, she couldn't help but feel a little left-out sometimes.

Actually, now that Terezi really thought about it, Dave was borderline reclusive for the whole trip and he spent more time with Karkat than with the rest of them. He rarely had to be around any of them, though, as he was the Knight of Time and could manipulate the years to go either faster or slower depending on what he wanted.

In fact, if Dave didn't want to, he'd never have to interact with anyone ever again.

However, the solitary snarker hadn't shut himself in his own timeloop yet and he pulled Terezi from her reverie. "But I wouldn't worry about it. She'll be fine and you still look sleepy."

"Whatever you say, coolkid, you and all your weird friendship stuff." With a playful pout, Terezi adjusted the red glasses on her head and turned to get a clearer "look" at the human pile at her feet. "Do all human friends sleep together?"

"Nah. Not always. But the best of bros and, like, couples and stuff do. Basically, if you, like," he shrugged from beneath John, "love each other."

"So you are going to be John's matesprite? What about all that "ho-mo-sexual" issue?"

Dave snickered. "Bromos before homos, Terezi, but we're still totally getting married. Assuming I get out of this weird position alive. This right here might be a dealbreaker."

"I still don't understand most of this strange human conversation, but okay. I'll take it that you are some equivalent of palemates or something. And so," she tilted her head to Jade and Davesprite, "I assume Mister Orange Creamsicles and Jade are also "bromos before homos"?"

Instantly, she felt the air adopt a chill and the hair on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end.

Jade, who was more or less maintaining the island they were all standing on through mysterious means, arrived mentally exhausted and had become unresponsive shortly before the two groups of friends had their rendezvous- John had carried her into the cave and propped her against the wall before going back outside to excitedly greet his troll friends. When they had all settled down to sleep, Jade had been curled up in a ball by herself, but she wasn't in that lonesome position anymore- at some point during the night, Davesprite had snuck in and leaned her against him and he now had his good wing wrapped around her like a blanket.

And as luck would have it, the sprite was also awake for this conversation now, but he refrained from saying anything to give himself away. Both Daves knew it, though, as an orange gaze burned through Terezi and across the cave to the back of the Knight of Time's head. The knight's red irises weren't giving off friendly vibes, either.

Terezi regretted saying anything and gripped Pyralsprite tighter.

Finally, Dave (the human one) broke the silence. "I think we should all go back to sleep instead of trying to climb the shitheap Everest that is understanding relationships." Terezi normally would have probed more, but he said it with an unusual amount of finality that the words died in her throat. She nodded and scurried deeper into the cave and hid behind Karkat's snoring form.

* * *

><p>Outside, Rose continued to watch the birds in the sky.<p>

Two of the crows had broken from the murder and were slowly circling one another. It would only be a matter of time before one of them made a move- it was nature's dance for dominance and the outcome would not be pretty.

She drew her full lips into a thin line and pondered upon what she had just seen in this beginning.


	9. Chapter 9

_Hey, you guys! I got enough feedback from the prior chapter to continue this sucker. And to anonymous reader D, thanks for pointing some stuff out- this should answer most of your questions and I'm editing the prior chapter so it's a little clearer. Reviews are very very very veryveryveryverrrry helpful and I appreciate them so much!_

_This is another part with LOTS of information and gives a different spin on the events mentioned last chapter. I hope it isn't too much of an info dump. Raaahhh. I want to get to writing the actual Dave and Jade part of this, but all the characters are kind of important and so is AU-building! Also I have no idea if I want Alpha kid involvement yet. Bleeeeeh._

_Thank you for reading and reviewing, daahhhlings! Criticism, pointers, and feedback are greatly appreciated!_

* * *

><p><em>Yes- HomeworldThe Ladder Part II_

The sudden return of Jade's seemingly narcoleptic tendencies was not random. She had not closed her eyes to merely ward off exhaustion, but to facilitate the safe and stable environment she and her friends were currently occupying.

Now, she was no Horrorterror, but she could still woof out a nice dreambubble if she put her mind to it.

When she had first been introduced to Feferi, she had been rather appalled by the slippery circumstances she had found herself in, but she had eventually adjusted to it much like all the other planetless dreamers had.

And then unlike everyone else, she had grilled the seadweller about the secrets of how dreambubbles worked until the dreamkeeper, exasperated by Jade's unquenchable thirst for knowledge, took her to the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors to observe firsthand the strange process. Honestly, the Space Witch still did not have a clue as to _what_ went on in a dark god of the outer ring to make it glub dreambubbles (glubbubbles, she and Feferi had joked), but she had learned enough through the feel of the energy in the air to figure out how to create her own spheres of sleep-illusions using her "spacey powers" and the knowledge of universal innerworkings garnered from the remains of Bec's consciousness.

They weren't exactly the same and nowhere near as permanent as Outer Ring bubbles, but they got the job done.

Her last thoughts before collapsing on the prow of the ship were how happy she was that Davesprite and Rose had been with her while she honed her technique. They had been a huge help, what with Rose and her penchant for Horrorterror mythos and Dave with insights into how space and time aren't all that different, in ironing out the kinks of managing multiple bubbles (within other bubbles, to boot!) at once. The preparations really came in handy- especially since she had to create special bubbles for the trolls in lieu of sopor slime.

When they had all settled down and closed their eyes, she had opened hers, hopped up, and proceeded to wander around the cave with all the curiosity of a young child while the sprites chuckled at her enthusiasm- they had no real need for sleep- and urged her to let herself rest, too.

She waved them off, reminding them that she couldn't actually sleep if she was focused on keeping all the dreambubbles afloat.

It was kind of fun, actually, to be able to see what each of her friends' memories and thoughts were- the iridescent bubbles played out their dreams along the top of their shimmering surface like a movie and Jade delighted in seeing all of the reflections fill the island at once. Unfortunately, the fact that many of the dreamers did not actually know she was watching their unbridled trains of uninhibited thought run rampant made her feel like a voyeur, so she decided to take the time to step in and announce her presence to them in person.

Since her shipmates had all been with her and were very well aware of her dreamweaving skills, she decided to skip visiting them and went straight for the trolls. After dodging a few carapace-bubbles (and Jaspersprite- the wily cat was full of energy after meeting all of these new people), Jade steeled herself and entered Kanaya's dreams.

* * *

><p>"Hello?"<p>

"Oh my, Jade!" The sweet lilt and precise speech rang elatedly from her green lips. "I very nearly did not believe Rose when she said that we would be able to sleep without sopor nor did I realize you would beplaying at Feferi. It is very nice to see you!"

"So you know you are sleeping?"

Kanaya laughed. "Oh, Rose and windy John assured us about the safety of sleeping in the first place and I realized that this was a dream quickly after it started. They did not explain how this could be nor did they inform us of your hand in it, however."

"Gosh, that still makes this first impression thing a whole lot easier!"

At that, Kanaya clapped her hands and spread her arms out to gesture to her sunny room. "Would you like to borrow a dress for your first impression? Not to say that you look badly, it is just that black simply does not suit you as well as colors do." She gave a giddy smile. "Also it feels like forever since I was in my room, illusion or not, and it would bring me great pleasure to make you new clothes."

"Oh, are you sure? But- wait, but what happens when I exit your bubble? If you are dreaming these clothes up, then won't they disappear when I leave?" Suddenly, she brought her hands to her cheeks and gasped. "WHAT IF I INTRODUCE MYSELF TO KARKAT AND I'M NAKED? Ohhhh, nooo!"

If it were even possible, Kanaya's chalky face paled even more. "I had not considered that." She pursed her lips. "But I must ask about the lovely island we first met on. What or where is that?"

Jade busied herself with looking at Kanaya's wardrobe as she answered. "Oh, it's technically my dreambubble. If this bubble pops or you leave it, you just end up back at that island."

"It is a beautiful island," she said. "And you… dreamed up these bubbles?"

"Um, kind of." She fiddled with the frills of one of Kanaya's more impressive skirts. "I made the bubble part to be like a filter to ward off bad, outside thoughts from my and other people's dreams, like a kind of dreamcatcher. I pretty much made a little pocket of space that you filled with whatever memory you started thinking of! Neat, huh?"

"Very, as I assume the word is not used to mean "clean" or "tidy" rather than "awesome" or "cool". Yet I must ask you, how are you doing this?"

After perusing the clothes on display, Jade floated over to inspect the seamstress' current outfit. "I was not actually sleeping when I got off the ship. It was more like deep meditating." She examined Kanaya's face. "Gosh, everything about you is so stylish- even your horns are classy. And your fangs!"

* * *

><p>"Ohhh, I love <em>your<em> fangs, too!"

"Want me to bite you with 'em to say hello?" Vriska spat.

"No thanks, but I still want to get to know you! John's told me so much about you- it's really nice to finally meet you!"

"Ohhhhhhhh? John told you about me? Well, he never mentioned _you_."

"Well, of course not! He had so many more interesting and important things to talk about! And you had a lot of really cool adventures to help him out with, like, gaining all those levels and stuff. Y'know, he sure would not have gotten very far without you- how can you have… just… oh, man, how do I word it? How can you have so many irons in the fire and not lose your mind? I certainly wasn't able to do that! I definitely lost my mind a few times!"

Vriska couldn't tell if this girl was sincere or incredibly cunning.

"Well, listen here, little woofbeastie. When you're raised to be the best," she proudly flashed the fangs that had caught Jade's attention, "You're going to be the best. And I'm the best troll. So what's that tell ya?"

Jade looked at Vriska with her big, starry eyes and her smile grew softer, but no less sincere. "You're really cool," she said.

"You fucking bet!" With a flourish, she whipped her hair over her shoulder. "I'm cooler than that ice-cold shit planet you came from!"

"Oh, I'm betting. I'm betting."

"Soooooooo, why are you giving me that look? I know I'm totally amazing, but we've just met and surely my sheer superiority couldn't have already made you adore me. Or is it just your spacey brain messing with your face?"

She ignored the small insult and shook her head. "You remind me a little of someone, that's all. Oh!" her ears perked up and she covered her surprised mouth with a quick hand. "I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that I'm, uh, the person who made this dreambubble you're in."

* * *

><p>"Oh, for fuck's sake," Karkat had replied, "so instead of being in the slimy tentacle clutches of some fucking horrorterrors, we're in the even slimier protein chute of a slobbering-"<p>

Jade cut him off before he lost track of the conversation. "Thank you for pointing out how I need to wipe my apparently slobbering mouth. It's really nice to meet you in person for the first time, too."

"Dammit, Jade, I'm sorry you took that the wrong way. I know it was a little callous and, aw, jeegus fucking Sufferer H. Christ, it's just that I am so fucking ti-"

"What did you just say?"

"I didn't say anything! You didn't let me finish, so obviously-"

"No, about "jeegus fucking" something."

"Will you let me finish my-"

"C'mon, Karkat! It was funny!"

"For the LAST time, I-" he slumped his shoulders and sighed. "It's what Dave always said after I told him about the Sufferer. Jeegus fucking Sufferer H. Christ. The full version is "Jeegus fucking Sufferer tapdancing Karkat Vantas you fuckass dumpass chumpass H. Christ", but that's way too unwieldy and there's no way I'm drawing that whole-"

Jade was in stitches. "Oh wow, really? I'm not entirely sure what all that means but that is too funny! So you and Dave are best bros now?"

"What? Why the hell would I be "best bros"-whatever that is, we aren't re-fucking-lated- with that douchenozzle? I mean, oh, _yes_, I am _so completely enthralled_ by his coolkid antics that my pants travel upwards with the excitement of a thousand wheeled rides- whatever _those _are, he keeps going on about them- when he's around and start bringing _me_ up with them when they reach my chin because going any higher would result in a pants-induced thinkpan-lobotomy- which might have happened in order for this fucking anomaly of "Dave-induced elation" to come to pass in any circumstance EVER, thanks in advance for solving the great mystery, you Snooping Dog, or whatever that dog's name is, troll Will Smith is still _vastly better_ in _every way_- and he and I suddenly find ourselves so_ gogdamned high_ that we can't fucking come down because if we do I'll rip the bulge-stitches of my thinkpan-severing pants and be nook-naked and he's such a fucking _nooksniffer_ that my exposed nook will put him in nooksniffing heaven and I don't want him fucking sniffing my nook even if it's in an ironic fashion versus an unironic one like those _fucking shades_ of his- he's such a grublicker for wanting to hide the sickening friendship feelings those things imbed into his brain because just because they're sickening _doesn't_ mean they should be shut out. I mean, being a "best bro" or whatever is kind of like the pale and ashen quadrants and that's still a kind of- what do you bulgewhiffers call it? Love." He breathed. "Yeah, maybe he's not _quite_ as insufferable as I thought. But he's still a PRICK."

Jade's laughter reached its peak and she fell to the floor of his bedroom, gasping for air.

"Oh, Karkat, I'm so happy that your "friendship feelings" aren't hidden by something stupid like a pair of sunglasses with deep personal significance! It's great to know your own crabbiness is all that is holding you back!" Jade halted her gleeful peals of glee long enough to stand up and give her friend a hug.

"I never said those fucking shades could actually hide the-" he shut up when he felt her arms around him.

"See? When you take naps, you get to meet people face-to-face and they don't start thinking that your big, scary, fuckass monologues are completely insulting and rude."

"…I didn't mean anything by the slobbering woofbeast comment."

"I know. But do you promise me you'll sleep regularly?"

"…Fine. If you're in charge of these bubbles."

"Well, Dave is technically helping, too."

Karkat immediately took a step back and cast his reddened face around the room. "WHAT! _He's_ here, _too_?"

Jade shook her head. "Nooo, silly. I asked Rose to tell him to keep time outside paused and stable while we rest here in the big dream bubble where all of these little dream bubbles I made for all of you are!"

* * *

><p>"So it's like some kind of dream-inception! Hee hee!"<p>

Jade nodded up at Terezi from her pile of scalemates. "I guess. I think. I just thought we could use a break before we entered the scratched session."

Puzzled, Terezi scooted behind her and began rubbing the velvety tips of Jade's ears. "But we've had a break. It was a sweep-and-a-half long! Or, uh, three years, as you guys say."

Jade swallowed some impending barks and craned her head closer for Terezi to scratch. "But not around each other. We need to get to know the whole team and how we've all changed over such a long time! And, ohhh, to the left a little, no, no, other left, that's really nice, yeah, riiiight there!" she guided her blind friend's hand over onto the desired area of her scalp, "And anyway, I'm hoping to permanently keep this dreambubble running as a place to leave all the consorts and denizens while we figure out this strange new session of Earth!"

"Huh? I thought you could take them all with you in little mini-portable planets, like bite-sized candies! Except you don't eat them."

Jade picked up a white scalemate and hugged it close. "I know I can, but I feel like they'd be safer in a bubble away from the action. And also, I can't just rain down salamanders and nakkodiles and turtles and penguins and frogs and sprites everywhere!"

"Oh!" Terezi started to giggle uncontrollably and bounce on her toes before zooming around to kneel level with Jade's face. "But think how delicious! Grapey turtles and lemony and blue-raspberry salamanders and powdered sugar Prospitians and licorice Dersites…" If Terezi had still had visible pupils, they would have widened considerably, "…bright candy red nakkodiles!" She licked her lips and Jade's dog instinct made her subconsciously mimic the gesture, "And all of that is topped by Mister Orange Creamcicles!" After giving a sudden, swift licking to the Pyralsprite in Jade's arms, Terezi's tongue slipped back into her mouth (whether Karkat's slobber comment could be considered an insult in the first place was now a defined unknown to Jade, considering that he and Terezi were close and here the Libra was drooling like a dog) and her grin turned itself down from "intentionally insane" to "thoughtfully manic." She sat back on her haunches and snatched away Pyralsprite to stroke as she considered the theoretical rainbow flood of adorable creatures. "But I guess I can see how that would be problematic. Except," she snickered and picked out an orange scalemate for Jade to hold, "I can't actually see. Hee hee hee!"

* * *

><p>"Do my eyes deceive me? Man, this is a motherfuckin' miracle," Gamzee uttered upon Jade's entrance. "I was all chillin' out here, and suddenly you just up and appearify like," languidly, he breathed in, "man, I don't know, some kind of vision in black. Can I just touch your ear-horns, man?"<p>

Jade couldn't say why, but she felt very unsettled by the spatters of rainbow paint sprayed across the walls of the juggalo-troll's dreamroom. "Um, okay, Gamzee, that's fine. So, uh, I am Jade and you are in a dreambubble I made that's inside my own dreambubble. Just, um, so you know."

"Whoa! That's wild, man. So motherfuckin' wild."

She smiled as he gently rubbed her furry ears- he seemed pretty docile- and was about to ask if he had been painting recently when a third party entered the bubble and her calm, dignified voice interrupted the moment.

"Jade, my dearest brother has requested that you come with me. Well, in all actuality, he has demanded, but I feel that he is not in a position to be making demands."

"Rose?"

"He was going to only send his… sprightly and spritely counterpart, but since I am _better_," she said the word with barely-concealed pride, "at entering the bubbles, he chose me to be the one to actually retrieve you instead."

"Oh, okay. Well, uh, I will see you later, Gamzee."

As the Witch of Space took her friend's hand and blipped out of the bubble, Gamzee's reverberating and fading coos of amazement suddenly turned wrathful before silencing themselves completely.

"What was that? Is he okay?" She made a move to reenter his lucid sphere, but Rose held her fast and she felt another set of hands clasp her shoulders. Startled, she turned her head around to find Davesprite attached to the unknown fingers.

"Don't go back, Jade. He's fine. This is why the other Dave sent us," he said.

"Huh?"

Rose cocked her shoulders in a gesture of uncertainty. "Believe me; I do not have a firm grasp of all the details, myself. But according to our human Knight, Makara has unusual episodes that sound like an extremely mediocre enactment of _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, except Makara's Jekyll is also a destructive dunderhead rather than a misguided and foolish scientist. Also, Dave says that he is especially inclined to violent thoughts in his sleep, as he is presumably addicted to sopor slime even when awake. Considering that you cannot control the negative thought patterns of a dreamer once inside they are inside a dream bubble, leaving you with him would be unwise."

At this point, Davesprite felt the need to chime in. "And apparently both me and my other self decided to be a moron and make this guy love-hate him when we were twelve, so I couldn't go in because I'm so outrageously attractive that I might set him off worse just by looking at him.

"…Oh."

"Indeed. Now, I need to go and rest before I go to observe the subconscious omens Becquerel's remnants and your visions of the new Bilious Slick are about to reveal. Say hello to John before I leave you with this feathery asshole."

* * *

><p>The Heir didn't look up from his pantry even as a loud "pop" erupted from above him. "Hey Jade," he called. He was used to this by now.<p>

"Hi, John! Rose also says hi," she replied. "See ya!"

He nodded and considered his overstuffed shelves. "Why is it that even in dreams all we have to eat is Betty Crocker stuff? Bluh."

* * *

><p>"And how was my favorite Egderp?" Davesprite asked as she pulled herself from the bubble.<p>

"He seemed fine. Why? Did something happen while I was meditating?"

He wiggled his trailing spirit tail. "Naw, it's just that he's my one and only Egbert and I gotta make sure he's safe in the nest."

"You are a wonderful mama bird."

"I am simply the best there is. And apparently I had a career choice as a wonderful nest, too, in another lifetime." He spread his arms out to call attention to the fact that his alternate-timeline self was coiled around and beneath John in near-impossible ways. "I am so fucking happy he never made me do that shit."

Jade regarded him with a confused expression. "But he did!"

"What? When."

"Whenever I would practice on you two for managing multiple dreamers, you guys ended up like this. You probably never noticed because I always woke John up first so you'd get safely untangled. It came in handy, though, 'cause I can safely mesh their bubble overlaps as I need to even if they intersect on the normal physical plane because of -"

"Hey, so why don't we not talk about all this space shit?"

"You started it by asking, Dave!"

Because she had the memories of Jadesprite, or perhaps because she had the easiest time growing accustomed to her feathered friend being the only Dave in her vicinity, Jade had been the first to drop the "sprite" on his name. John hadn't been completely able to warm to using Dave's unembellished first name until near the end of their trip while Rose usually called him "Strider" and left it at that. Reclaiming his own name had been a victory for him and it gave him great pleasure whenever anyone called him by it.

Dave didn't know what was in a name before he had lost it, but he had learned the hard way that there certainly _was_ something to it.

He smiled and tweaked Jade's ear. "And now I'm ending it. So tell me about this bigass bubble out here. What the hell are you dreaming about?"

"Well." She absentmindedly swatted at his hand with her ear, "The easy answer is that I'm envisioning my island, but that is not quite true. You know how I told you that… _that_ Dave," she gestured to the fair-haired boy on the ground, "and I gathered a bunch of frogs to make a new universe?"

"Hn."

"So this is me, using the Land of Frost and Frogs as a physical base and dreaming of that new universe on top of it! Dave and I," she felt her friend shift beside her, "_that_ Dave and I probably had a little bit of influence on what it would actually be like, since we caught the little hoppers, and Rose theorized the same thing. So this is hopefully a preview of what we'll get at the end of the game. The Post-Sburb Beta."

"It's pretty cool, I guess. A little bit of nostalgia mixed with a little bit of awesome."

"I'm a little scared that I might be drawing too much from old memories," she muttered, growing quiet.

Immediately, Dave tried to perform damage control for whatever can of worms he didn't realize he'd open up. "Naw, keeping some of the old stuff is a good idea. If it wasn't broken, why fix it? I mean, I know that artists and stuff are always trying to find new material and shit to develop and then exploit and then make mainstream so they can milk it for like a goddamn killing or whatever and then leave it on the wayside like it meant no more to them than a creative one-night stand, 'cause they gotta stay on the media radar by staying off of it no matter how much they liked their original shtick in the first place, but that's why most of those fuckers ain't just douchebag hipsters, but completely stupid. Believe me, I'd know," he tried.

Her laugh was distracted. He was losing her. He reeled and just kept running his mouth.

"Hey, maybe you should go back to meditating. Maybe then you'll obtain whatever knowledge you're seeking. Like some kind of crazy dog-Buddha. Put a whole new spin on "dog-god"."

"I should really talk to Dave."

Before he could stop them, Davesprite's feathers ruffled themselves. "You already are," he said, hoping to come off a personable wiseass but instead succeeding only in displaying how utterly bitter and petty he felt.

Jade ignored him and walked over to the thin, silvery shimmer enveloping the sleeping knight of time and placed her hand upon it. "I will not be long. Just a few minutes."

* * *

><p>He was sitting cross-legged on a bed when she entered, like he had been expecting her. "'Sup, Harley?"<p>

"Not much. What's up with you, cool kid?" She took a tentative step forward. "Feeling cool today?"

He grinned despite himself and got up off the bed. "Oh, you bet."

"Is shit ice cold up in here? It sure feels that way." She put her hands behind her back and rocked back and forth on her feet.

"Then you got it right, 'cause it's definitely ice cold up in here."

"And," she wandered forwards as she tried to think of more of Dave's most common turns of phrase, "is it wicked bananas?"

"The absolute most deplorable and vindictive kind of yellow tube-fruit that ever came out of the jungles of Africa. Or the most sicknasty, depending on how you use your slang." He drew closer.

"But wouldn't using "sicknasty as "wicked" be redundant?" They were about three feet away from one another and the gap was closing quickly.

"Maybe. Or it could just be a way to double the intensity of how fucking awesome I feel right now."

"That is… that is some wicked intensity right there!"

"You know it," he said, spreading out his arms and upturning his palms.

Jade threw her own arms around him before he could put them down and go off on some coolkid tangent. "I missed you."

"And you have no idea how much I missed you. Those trolls are absolutely insane, and while Terezi also happens to do double duty when it comes to the exact definition of her insanity, I am not referring to the "wicked sicknasty" kind of insanity."

Suddenly a third pair of arms and the voice they belonged to wrapped up both Dave and Jade. "I don't mean to interrupt but I just wanted in on this."

"Damn, Egbert, you can't get enough of me, can you."

"Excuse me, Dave, but this is my dreambubble and my dreamroom you are currently in, so that means that I get to do whatever I want."

"Chill, man, it's cool. I know I'm irresistible. Never said I blamed you."

Jade could tell that Dave was actually more than a little miffed at John for butting in even though the banter was taking place in good fun. "So, um," she lifter her head from Dave's shoulder to look from one boy to another, "I _was_ wondering why Dave was hanging out with you in your dreamroom instead of actually sleeping."

"Jade, there's nothing wrong with your dreambubbles, honestly. It's just that Egbert over here couldn't bear the thought of having to go without seeing me again. He thought I'd up and go on another interdimensional cruise with an even more absurd crowd of bisexual fuckasses. And also because I think he thinks this is like in _City of Angels_ where Nic Cage and that blonde chick finally meet after a lifetime of observing each other but never really interacting, like, hook up for a day and then she up and dies."

With more mangrit than was necessary, John squeezed his friends. "The parallels are too close for comfort on that one. And also you can say what you want, but I know you think that movie is one of the most tragic things you've ever seen."

"John, can you let go of us? You're making me feel like a sardine."

"Only if you both promise to have a food fight with me and all the Betty Crocker shit in my dream-pantry."

* * *

><p>Outside the bubble, a few minutes minute became what felt like an hour and then two hours and then three. Still, Davesprite didn't move from his spot.<p>

Except for the few times he paced forwards and almost entered the bubble himself.

But he didn't and when finally- finally- Jade came out, he was waiting for her.

He took advantage of the coverage his sunglasses gave him and isolated any open emotion he was showing to his eyes. "The sun is going to come up soon. You'd best get that meditation shut-eye, missy, 'cause it's way past your Zen time."

Jade smiled and closed her eyes as she felt him wrap his wing around her. "You are simply the best mama bird there is."

He drew her closer and proceeded to glare at his alternate self.


End file.
